THE POLYNESIAN ALPHABET. 17 



at the comprehension of my idea of a germ-sound, and the equal fact 

 that from such a germ-sound final emergence may be made to either one 

 of the two limiting sounds. 



Regarded in the light of this germ-sound characteristic, we shall find 

 the Proto-Samoan consonant skeleton to represent a speech-type far 

 below our own. The array of mutes really corresponds to a row of three 

 germ-mutes, and the series of labials to germ-mute and germ-spirant 

 which are still so uncertain that they may interchange the one with the 

 other or even with the semivowel. 



The type of the strongest modern speech developed by deviation of 

 this nature from the Proto-Samoan is well illustrated by the present 

 Samoan ; its structure is discoverable upon the Proto-Samoan diagram 

 by omitting the italic letters. The semivowels at the palatal and 

 labial extremities have such scant precision that it had not been found 

 necessary to give them alphabetic expression; they are recognizable, 

 however, in current speech. In the Proto-Samoan the lingual semi- 

 vowel was triple, r, r grasseye, and I. Of these the r grasseye has been 

 wholly lost in the modern languages. As between r and I the languages 

 of Nuclear Polynesia have chosen the I; in so far as they have determ- 

 inant value we may therefore assign the I to the immediate survivors of 

 the Proto-Samoan household. 



The most permanent element of the consonant skeleton is the row of 

 three nasals, one for each of the buccal speech-areas. This, in fact, 

 we should expect to find the case in a language slowly acquiring conso- 

 nants as a new device of speech; those which lie nearest the vowels 

 should be the first acquired, therefore the practice in their formation 

 should have been longest and as a result their fixity the greatest. Of 

 the three we find m to exist in all these languages almost without altera- 

 tion. This is conditioned by the manner in which the sound is formed ; 

 it requires the closing of the lips and then the opening ; there can be in 

 nature no intermediate possibility, either the lips are closed or they are 

 not, the one position creates the m, the other does not. It is foreign to 

 our Polynesian inquiry, but none the less interesting to the student of 

 phonetics, to note that in my Melanesian studies I have segregated 

 instances where the ruder folk of those western and less advanced regions 

 have not yet fully acquired the simple precision of even this most ele- 

 mentary closure ; they have an m-variant which is most nearly expressed 

 by mw. The other nasals are less positive. A frequent error in Samoan 

 speech at the present day is to interchange ng and n when they appear 

 in close proximity, less frequently is similar substitution made when 

 either stands singly. In general we are to say that the languages of 

 Nuclear Polynesia retain the full series of nasals ; this, then, is to that 

 extent a character of the Proto-Samoan household. 



Granting, now, to a race of speech-beginners the discovery that by 

 exerting a power to make various closures they enjoy the capacity to 



