[3] Wurm and Hattori consider Rakahanga-Manihiki as a distinct language with "limited intelligibility with Rarotongan"[4] (i.e. the Cook Islands Maori dialectal variant of Rarotonga).
According to the New Zealand Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hīroa who spent a few days on Rakahanga in the years 1920, "the language is a pleasing dialect and has closer affinities with [New Zealand] Maori than with the dialects of Tongareva, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands"[3][5] Rakahanga and Manihiki are two different islands but the culture is one.
The island of Rakahanga was discovered in the year 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese voyager sailing under Spain under the command of Pedro Fernandes.
The people of Manihiki and Rakahanga were led by one ruler, a chief, in which he was separated from his community giving up his ritual and economic powers.
[8] As years went by, technology advanced to another level in which high frequency radios have been invented and used for inter-island communication between the island of Rakahanga for medical and educational purposes.
"Cook Islands Māori is an indigenous language with several dialects including Penrhyn, Rakahanga-Manihiki, Atiu, Mitiaro, Mauke, Aitutaki, and Mangaian".
The Europeans have omitted the obvious H sound in Rakahanga by writing in print “Rakaanga.” The people of the Manihiki Island pronounce their island “Manihiki” but write it Maniiki because the people are taught when learning the alphabet to not include the H. The word hala was influenced by Tahiti, where the sound exists as an F and is pronounced as “fara”.
[citation needed] This is similar to Tongareva's phonology, but Manihiki has a glottal stop [ʔ], and the fricative [f].