Europeans first arrived in the islands in 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan reached them while sailing across the Pacific Ocean.

Subsequent explorers visited the islands over the centuries, including Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian ethnographer who sailed the Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific in 1947.

Religious chants have been preserved and translated that describe the attributes of Kiho and how he created the world.

[6] In more recent times, the Tuamotus were the site of French nuclear testing on the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa.

Paumotu is a member of the Polynesian group of Oceanic languages, itself a subgroup of the Austronesian family.

[5] Paʻumotu has seven dialects or linguistic areas: covering Parata, Vahitu, Maraga, Fagatau, Tapuhoe, Napuka and Mihiro.

[3][8] The native Pa‘umotu people are somewhat nomadic, shifting from one atoll to another and thereby creating a wide variety of dialects.

[9][3]: 101–108  Primarily due to the political and economical dominance of Tahiti in the region, many Pa‘umotu (especially those from the Western atolls) are bilingual, speaking both Paʻumotu and Tahitian.

An example is the Paʻumotu use of a velar sound such as k or g, which in Tahitian-Pa‘umotu (a blending of the languages) is rather a glottal stop.

[12] The Pa‘umotu language is being monitored by a dedicated regulatory body, called Académie pa'umotu [fr], or Kāruru vānaga.

It is also found in free variation with /k/ and /ŋ/ in a number of words shared between Pa‘umotu and Tahitian.