14 EASTER ISLAND. 



It will not escape notice that the vowel tract is incomplete. This 

 is by no means to be taken to mean that the Rapanui is less rich in 

 vowel sounds than is our own speech. Far otherwise, the vowel is the 

 skeleton of every Polynesian vocable, a fixed value, structural entity 

 subject only to secular modification and that but rarely. On another 

 occasion I have registered my impression of the Polynesian vowel: 



A man with a quick ear and an obedient tongue may, as the result of long 

 discipline, acquire almost perfect use of the Samoan consonants, but it is most 

 probable that no Caucasian has mastered the art of the Samoan vowels. It 

 is as in their music; the intervals, the supertones and the fractions of the tone 

 are developed on a system which we find it impossible to acquire. It estab- 

 lishes a new group of units of vibration of the vocal cords, for which the 

 fundamental diapason of our own speech is not set in unison.* 



Holding this opinion I must discountenance any idea of emptiness 

 in the vowel tract. It seems empty only for the reason that the col- 

 lectors of the vocabularies upon which our studies are based either have 

 failed to catch the rich shadings of the vowels through ears trained to 

 find the strength of speech in the consonants, or have recognized their 

 inability to represent them by any of the type resources at their com- 

 mand. We who can make the type fairly speak for us must commis- 

 erate these poor missionaries with their shabby fonts. I might evaluate 

 these vowels by proper symbols in several of the languages under col- 

 lateral review, but that would remain unsatisfactory because incomplete. 

 In fact, before these languages have become too far corrupted, records 

 should be taken phonographically, so that a careful study may be made 

 and a common system of expression devised in order that their full vowel 

 beauty may be represented as an object at which to aim, even though 

 we may fall short of the mark. Through this lack I am forced to leave 

 the vowel area diagrammed by the five fundamental characters. 



When we come to the consideration of the consonants we arrive at 

 more certain ground. For immediate comparison I set side by side the 

 consonant plan of Rapanui and that of the Proto-Samoan. 



For the information of those who have not examined the preceding 

 studies in this work of opening the treasure of the philology of isolating 

 speech through its great and widely extended Polynesian family I 

 should explain what is indicated under the designation Proto-Samoan. 

 It is that ancient speech which from a study of the modern languages 

 of Nuclear Polynesia we establish as representing their common parent. 

 As in the study of the philology of inflected speech it has been possible 

 to segregate a common parent of the Indo-Germanic tongues, the same 

 method of research yields equally satisfactory results in this far more 



*i7 Journal of the Polynesian Society, 87. Withdrawn by amputation from the context 

 which expressed the purpose which the last sentence was designed to serve this may now 

 appear misleading. It should be understood that the variety does not obtain in definitely 

 measurable vibration of the vocal cords, but does obtain in the mass of overtones derivable 

 from changes in the form of the head cavities, whether singly or in conjunction, acting as 

 soft-walled sound-chambers. 



