Tonga Insults

I had a breakthrough moment in terms of Tonga language acquisition the other day.

I was sitting in the Namumu office, crunching kapenta numbers, when Zenzo, Namumu’s Assistant Accountant, my good friend and co-worker, entered through the front door. As he was stepping through he shouted something to someone outside.

“Zenzo, you’re too loud, I’m trying to work here!” I yelled at him in Tonga, jokingly.

Just to be clear, Zenzo and I verbally abuse each other in both Tonga and English on a daily basis. So it was cool. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He quickly shot back in Tonga, “Shut your mouth! You are a dirty white man. Look at you! You are dirty like a dog. Get out of my office!”

And guess what? I understood every word of it! Every single word! I was so proud of myself. Usually I can just pick up bits and pieces, but in this case, for maybe the first time ever, I got the whole thing.

The moment has inspired me to step up my Tonga game, especially to learn more Tonga insults. Zenzo is in big, big trouble now.