vowels: a (pronounced: /a/), e (pronounced: /e/), i (pronounced: /i/), o (pronounced: /o/) and u (pronounced: /u/); and 10 consonants: /p t k f v h m n ŋ l/, /ŋ/ spelled g Long vowels can be marked with a macron above them: ā (/aː/), ē (/eː/), ī (/iː/), ō (/oː/), ū (/uː/) The Tokelauan alphabet is phonemic, except for long vowels that are not differentiated orthographically by most Tokelauan writers. The language does not heavily rely on the use of macrons to lengthen their vowels. There are some phonetic similarities between sounds in the language, such as /h/ and /f/, which results in some variation in orthographic practice. For example, toha and tofa both mean goodbye but can be pronounced differently. The sounds for h, s, f and wh can all be used interchangeably. There are two dialects in Polynesia, which has shaped the Tokelauan language to sound how it does. The h and wh sounds are from the older dialect, while the f and s sounds are from the newer one. The fact that all these sounds are interchangeable regardless of when it arrived at the islands suggests that no one dialect surpassed the other. Although Tokelauan is closely related to the Samoan language, there is a distinct difference between their pronunciation of words. For example, Samoan words containing the k sound can sound like g with words such as hiki often mistakenly heard as higi. Tokelauan language does not allow the k's to drop. Like English, vowels can be short or long. Moreover, vowels are lengthened for a more expressive statement. To indicate whether a vowel is read short or long, Tokelauan language denotes a long vowel with a macron over the letter symbol. A macron is a horizontal line, also seen in English. However, it is worthwhile to note that not all Tokelauan speaking peoples agree with the use of the macron. Those residing in the three atolls of Tokelau are known to have shown much resistance to the macron, while the Tokelauan speakers of New Zealand are more open and accepting of adopting the use of this linguistic symbol. Although there is not a lot of available systemic data for Tokelauan word stressing, linguistics have developed three rules relating word stress and vowels based upon some previous evidence. The first rule is that a long vowel will receive the main stress. Secondly, with some exceptions