Talk:Tuimalealiʻifano Vaʻaletoʻa Sualauvi II

Confusion regarding his name
There seems to be some confusion regarding the proper spelling of his name: Folohsor (talk) 03:40, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The article is titled "Tuimalealiifano Va'aletoa Sualauvi II", but the first line has "Va'aleto'a" instead of "Va'aletoa".
 * The official website of the Samoan government spells his name as both "Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II" and "Tuimalealiifano Vaaleto'a Sualauvi II" on the same page, and the directory page for him uses the former.
 * The page for "Tuimaleali'ifano" spells it with an apostrophe, but this article and the official Samoan website don't. Two news articles, from RNZ News and the Samoa Observer, use both "Tuimaleali'ifano" and "Tuimalealiifano" in the same article.
 * The page for the Samoan language lists the ʻokina as part of the Samoan alphabet, functioning as a glottal stop (which is common in many Polynesian languages) but all of the sources I've seen use an apostrophe instead. How his name is pronounced should indicate if there are apostrophes, ʻokinas, or neither in his name, but I have not found anything that specifies the proper pronunciation.


 * Tuimaleali'ifano (with 'okina please), is not a first name, but his title. Paramount chief often bears this title in Samoa. Samoan names may look difficult to interpretate into English, but it sounds like "Sir" or "His Highness", not a part of his name. Requested move to Va'aletoa Sualauvi II.--RotachZ (talk) 12:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , the discrepancies about the okina (called reverted comma in Samoan) are due to the fact that from 1962 to 2012, okina was rarely used for writing Samoan. Now Ministry of Education have ripristinated this usage, it should be written. So for example Tuimaleali'ifano is now once again written with an okina, as "NZ Herald" does most of the time ("Samoan election: Swearing in ceremony for FAST party held" ... nzherald.co.nz/world/samoan-election-swearing-in-ceremony-for-fast-party... Tuimaleali'ifano Va'aleto'a Sualauvi II, cancelled today's sitting of parliament without...). You're right about the two okina of Va'aleto'a (va'a means canoe).--RotachZ (talk) 12:14, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
 * : Samoan okina is officially written like in Hawaiian or Maori, but for printing reasons and copy links, most of the publishers write it with a normal apostrophe. The name of this letter in Samoan describes it clearly.--RotachZ (talk) 12:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Tuimaleali‘ifano
Hi there, in the infobox, I’ve just moved Tuimaleali‘ifano from the honorific prefix parameter to the name parameter. That is because Tuimaleali‘ifano is, in fact, a part of his name. When an individual attains a matai title, it becomes a part of their name. So it is not quite the same as Sir or Dame. Section four of the One Samoana source confirms this. N Panama 84534 (talk) 20:04, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

No longer head of state
I was just browsing Wikipedia and came across Samoa’s Constitutional Crisis. On that page, I found that the current head of state is Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa, not Tuimaleali’ifano Va’aleto’a Sualauvi. It seems this page should be updated to reflect he was formerly head of state. 2601:243:2501:35C0:41BF:446B:7B7C:3F6F (talk) 14:56, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Where does it say that? Tuimalealiʻifano Vaʻaletoʻa Sualauvi II is the incumbent head of state according to the Samoan government website. The prime minister of Samoa is the nation's head of government not head of state. —  N Panama   84534  04:26, 14 August 2023 (UTC)