The Motu Alphabet

Motu is an Austronesian language ^[1] spoken by the indigenous Motu people of the central Papuan coast in Papua New Guinea. The Motu people historically occupied a chain of coastal villages around Port Moresby Bay — villages such as Hanuabada (known as the "big village"), Baruni, Lealea, Porebada, and others. Port Moresby, now Papua New Guinea's capital city, grew from the colonial settlement adjacent to these traditional Motu villages. Today, the Motu are one of the founding communities of the Port Moresby urban area.

With approximately 30,000 native speakers, the Motu people are a small ethnic group in the context of Papua New Guinea's extraordinary diversity. However, their historical and cultural significance is outsized. The Motu language's derivative Hiri Motu became widely spoken across Papua New Guinea as a trade language, and many older Papua New Guineans — particularly in the police, military, and public service — learned Hiri Motu as a second language during the colonial period. Port Moresby, with a population of over 300,000, has become a predominantly Tok Pisin-speaking city, and Motu community life has been significantly transformed by urbanisation.

Motu uses the Latin alphabet ^[1] with 15 letters: 5 vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and 10 consonants (D, G, H, K, M, N, P, R, T, V). This is one of the smallest Latin alphabets of any natural language. Particularly notable is the absence of S — an unusual feature for a Latin-script language. The F, L, B, W, J, C, Q, X, and Z letters of the English alphabet are all absent from Motu.

The Motu alphabet was developed and standardised primarily through missionary and colonial linguistic work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The London Missionary Society (LMS) and later the United Church produced Motu-language Bibles, hymn books, and literacy materials. The simplicity of the Motu alphabet reflects the language's genuinely small phoneme inventory — Motu is not simply using fewer letters for the same sounds, but actually has fewer distinct sounds than most world languages, making it one of the most phonologically simple natural languages in existence.

Hiri Motu (also called Police Motu or Pidgin Motu) is a trade pidgin ^[1] derived from and simplified from the Motu language. It developed historically from the Hiri trading expeditions — the annual long-distance sailing voyages conducted by Motu traders across the Gulf of Papua to the Fly River delta and Gulf provinces, exchanging pottery for sago. During these voyages, Motu traders needed to communicate with non-Motu speakers, and a simplified, reduced form of Motu developed as a contact language.

During the colonial period, Hiri Motu was adopted by the colonial administration (first German, then British/Australian) as a language for communicating with Papua New Guinean police, labourers, and public servants. It spread widely across the country as "Police Motu" or "Government Motu." After Papua New Guinea's independence in 1975, Hiri Motu was made one of the three official languages of the country alongside English and Tok Pisin (the main Papua New Guinean creole). Today, Hiri Motu has approximately 150,000 or more second-language speakers, far outnumbering native Motu speakers.

The Hiri trading expeditions were remarkable annual voyages ^[2] conducted by the Motu people of the Port Moresby coast. Each year, large double-outrigger sailing canoes called lagatoi (carrying crews of up to 100 men) would set off from the Motu villages on the easterly monsoon (December-March), sailing westward up to 1,000 kilometres across the Gulf of Papua to the Gulf and Western Provinces. There they would trade Motu pottery — made by Motu women from local clay — for sago (a starchy food staple) from the Gulf and Fly River communities.

The Hiri was not merely a trade route but a complex socio-cultural institution with its own ceremonies, spiritual practices, and social obligations. The voyage was dangerous — many men died on Hiri expeditions — and its successful completion was marked with elaborate welcoming ceremonies. The Hiri expeditions demonstrate the sophistication of traditional Papuan maritime trade networks and the navigational skills of the Motu people. Hiri Moale, Papua New Guinea's national festival held in Port Moresby each September, commemorates the Hiri trading tradition with traditional canoe races and cultural performances.

Native Motu is classified as a vulnerable language ^[2], with approximately 30,000 native speakers. Within the urban environment of Port Moresby, Tok Pisin (the dominant Papua New Guinean creole) has become the primary language of daily communication for many younger Motu people, particularly those who have grown up in the multicultural urban setting. The traditional Motu coastal villages adjacent to Port Moresby — including Hanuabada, which is built on stilts over the water of the harbour — remain important cultural spaces where Motu language and identity are actively maintained.

Paradoxically, while native Motu declines in some urban contexts, Hiri Motu — the simplified trade pidgin derived from Motu — remains one of Papua New Guinea's three official languages, though it too is losing ground to Tok Pisin. The Motu Cultural Centre and various community organisations in Port Moresby work to preserve and promote Motu language and culture. Motu is taught in some community contexts, and the United Church continues to use Motu in some religious services, supporting language maintenance among the community.