The Rotuman language is written with the Latin alphabet, just as English is.  However, it uses one consonant symbol that English doesn’t use, and several of its vowel letters have extra marks, called diacritics, either above or below them.  The letters will be introduced below in the order in which they appear in the official Rotuman alphabet, which was developed by a missionary, Dr. Maxwell Churchward, in the 1940’s.  Where the sound that the letter stands for is different than it is for English, an explanation is provided

Consonants
f
g        This sounds like ng, as in sing; it can be found at the beginnings of words as well as the           middle or end.
h
j         This sounds like ch, as in chin.
k
l
m
n
p
r        This is different from the English r; it sounds more like the sound of the d in ladder.
s
t
v
ʽ        This looks like a backwards apostrophe.  It sounds like the catch in   the throat in the          middle of oh-oh.  It is an actual consonant (called in Linguistics a “glottal stop”), not part          of a vowel. 

Vowels
We’ll start with the basic vowels.  There are just five.
a        This is the sound of o in American English hot.
e        This is the sound of a in skate.        
i         This is the sound of ee in feet.        
o        This is the sound of o in hope.        
u        This is the sound of oo in hoop.      

Now we’ll go over the diacritics that can go on these basic vowel letters to indicate different vowel sounds.    First, all of these vowels can be pronounced in a way that lasts longer than usual.  This is shown by adding a line, or macron, over the vowel letter:
          ā, ē,  ī, ō, ū
So, for example, the word la, which is a kind of future marker in Rotuman, sounds shorter than the word lā, meaning ‘foot, leg’. 

Next, a, o, and u are sometimes written with two dots, or a diaresis, over them:
          ä, ö, ü
The ä sounds much like the a in fat.    The sounds of ö and ü are not found in English.  They are ‘front rounded’ vowels, and are found in some European languages such as French. You’ll have to go to the Sounds of Rotuman page to hear what these sound like.

Finally, the a vowel can be written with a single dot above or below it:
          ȧ,ạ
The a with dot above is similar to the sound of e in let, while the a with dot under is similar to the aw in the word law (though not in all dialects of English).  Again, you’ll have to listen to these sounds on the Sounds of Rotuman page.