18 EASTER ISLAND. 



form consonants, where in their inexperience should we expect to find 

 the next group of such acquisitions after they have found and conquered 

 the nasals lying so readily next their possession of the vowels? At the 

 further limit of consonant possibility, to wit, the mutes. 



The case is this: 



The experimenting speaker finds that, by an easy exercise of a 

 power, of which after long race-ages he finds himself to be possessed, 

 he can enrich his speaking provision by a series of consimilar closures 

 applied to each of the three speech-organs. His next essay would be 

 to try what he could accomplish by exerting this power to its utmost 

 possibility, having had the encouragement of finding an agreeable 

 result to follow its first halting exercise. Thus do I account for the 

 fact that our next complete series is at the utmost bound of speech 

 possibility; we have the mutes, at least a series of three germ-mutes, 

 one for each of the speech-organs. In speech it is as in music, the 

 pianissimo is within the gentle touch of halting fingers on the keyboard, 

 the weight of thumping blows can produce without instruction the 

 fortissimo; but to effect the graces of the intermediate expressions, 

 which give the music its charm, calls for patience and painstaking 

 assiduity in the training of the muscles specifically employed in the 

 process. Accordingly we find that out of the three germ-mutes Samoan 

 has possessed the more distal expression, the surds, and only within 

 an appreciably modern period has undergone the loss of the palatal k. 

 Of the other languages of Nuclear Polynesia, Uvea, Futuna, and Niue 

 have retained the same mutes as the Samoan. We shall see, however, 

 that this is not a distinctive character of the Proto-Samoan household ; 

 it occurs in the Tongafiti as well. In Tonga we find divarication; a 

 double emergence from the germ-mute has taken place ; we have not 

 only the full surd series k-t-p, but also the full sonant series g-d-b, 

 though not acknowledged in type forms except as to the last ; we find a 

 further development of the lingual mute, t before i becomes tch and is 

 written /. Omitting this special case of Tonga, we note in the selection 

 of the mutes by Nuclear Polynesian the utmost effect of that which I 

 have termed the fortissimo effect ; as between the spirant and the surd, 

 the latter represents the farther limit of the consonant-forming power. 



Between the triple and complete series of the nasals, the pianissimo 

 expression of the consonant power, and its fortissimo* expression in the 

 triple and complete series of the mutes, we pass over the aspiration, 



*In the sister, but more noisy, science of ordnance a high degree of ingenuity has been 

 developed in the creation of time fuses and impact fuses whereby the projectile is blown to 

 small bits immediately upon attaining the mark at which it is violently directed. It were 

 desirable that some such method were applicable to metaphors in diction. Having once 

 employed the terminology of piano-forte expression I find it convenient to continue the 

 employment. Lest error should arise, however, in proportion as the text progresses away 

 from the original mention of the figure, it may be well to set down the caution that pianissimo 

 and fortissimo do not here connote the volume of vocal sound, but refer solely to the degree 

 of consciously directed effort in the employment of the power whereby speaking man forms 

 the consonants of his speech. 



