THE POLYNESIAN ALPHABET. 15 



primitive type of speech. We are here, it should be understood, to 

 concern ourselves only with the phonetic side of this ancient speech. 



In this diagram the bold-faced type represents the letters now in 

 Samoan use, the italic those not now employed which are deducible 

 from extended comparisons. 



Rapanui. Proto-Samoan. 



r,- y r,l w 



ng n m ng n m 



h h h h 



s 



V V 



f 



g d b 



k t p k t p 



Inspection of the right-hand diagram shows that the Proto-Samoan 

 had 1 8 of the 23 consonants which we employ; but at the same inspec- 

 tion the type differentiation shows us how imperfectly it could hold 

 these elements of speech ; for in modern Samoan we find that but 9 are 

 retained, in Tongan 13 appear in the alphabet, yet owing to the extreme 

 rarity of 5 and p this is effectively 1 1 ; in Futuna there are 10, in Niue 10, 

 in Uvea 11. 



Since we shall have in these studies to take our departure from this 

 carefully reconstituted Proto-Samoan, it will be advisable to pass under 

 review its consonant structure toward whatever discovery we may make 

 of the vital formative principles underlying it. 



I have already set forth my belief that the strong element, the endur- 

 ing element, the root element of the Polynesian vocable lies in its vowel 

 structure. Indeed I have made the preliminary announcement of a 

 discovery which I find more and more reason to regard as valid and 

 upon which I shall elaborate in writing the history of the formative 

 stages of isolating speech, namely, that the word-root is reducible to a 

 vowel-seed modified by consonantal modulants having a coefficient 

 value of certain definite sorts. That the consonants, in comparison 

 with this sturdy vowel, are weak is shown by their fluctuations in value 

 as the languages of this family undergo their secular changes in two 

 somewhat separable households. 



This weakness it is impossible to represent by any system of type 

 upon any diagram, which must of necessity be both fixed and formal. 

 Upon comparison with the consonant scheme of our own language we 

 seem to find that the Proto-Samoan lacks only our palatal sibilants and 

 our lingual spirants. Superficially examined, the Proto-Samoan seems 

 to possess in the vertical series exactly our own equipment of labials, 

 and in the horizontal series our complete equipment of mutes extending 

 across all three buccal areas in which vocal sounds are produced. 



This is misleading ; we are errant through the fact that we are obliged 

 to set down the primordial and uncertain sounds through the agency of 

 our graphic symbols for fixed and positively determined sounds. The 



