At the outset of these studies, when we sought to



The Malay o-Polynesian Languages. 1 5 1

explain the origin of the explosive consonants, the
bases of articulation, we pointed out the primitive in-
decision of language between the sounds k, t, and p,
between the gutturals, dentals, and labials, then between
the liquids and the nasals, between the sibilants and
the aspirates. Now nowhere is this confusion more
apparent than in Polynesian between the different
dialects, and sometimes in the same. Man is in-
differently tanata or kanaka; shade or spirit is akoua,
atoua, apoua ; kalo is the same as taro, Samoa as
Hamoa, Sawaiki as Havaiki. Moreover, the consonants
are perpetually dropped : tanata becomes tane ; Sawa-
'iki, Hawa/i ; Ariki, lord, arii, areoi ; tiki, demon, tii ;
potcarka (the Spanish pnsrco, pig) becomes houaga or
pouaa. The supreme god is Tangaroa, Tangaloa,
Taaroa. Constantly there are double vowels and diph-
thongs : aa, ee, ii, ea, oa, oahou, which suppose inter-
mediary consonants which have been dropped. The
repetition of syllables and dissyllables, mea-mea, oro-
oro, Sac., tends to replace everywhere particles and
affixes. The examples are sufficient to establish our
point. The facts are constant. There are twenty
consonants in the Malay alphabet ; there are only
fifteen at Tonga, ten at Tahiti, and even less in some
other islands. The nasals and liquids, few in number
at Tonga, are almost unused at the Marquesas Islands.
Lastly, the dialects which are relatively the roughest
belong to the nations which are the least weakened,
the Maoris and the Hawaians.
The Polynesians have no written literature ; but
their oral traditions and cosmogonies are numerous.
