110 EASTER ISLAND. 



tion of its speech family. Before advancing upon this consideration 

 we shall examine the alphabet of Tahiti as adjusted upon its Proto- 

 Samoan base. 



a a, e 

 e e, a o o 



it Uw, i, ia 



\r,- 



ng - n n mm 



h h, v, - 

 sh,f,~ 



V V 



if.v.h 

 k- it p p 



In the vowel tract we encounter a variety unusual in our Polynesian 

 experience. The interchangeability of a and e is susceptible of expla- 

 nation upon the theory of the neutral vowel which I have already pro- 

 posed.* The mutation exhibited by the Tahiti u is unmatched. In 

 general this is one of the most permanent of all Polynesian vowels, yet 

 here it has undergone one change, the simpler, which yet does great vio- 

 lence to any theory of vowel production ; and a second change which is 

 absolutely abnormal, for in it U has become the two vowels ia, in which 

 there is not the slightest suggestion of diphthongal possibility. First 

 we shall examine the U-i mutation. It is, of course, understood that 

 vowel production is not in the least dependent upon any of the closures 

 of the several buccal organs which lead to the production of consonants. 

 But it is quite as clearly comprehended that position within the oral 

 cavity establishes the diversity of vowel sounds. From central a the 

 vowels in matched pairs tend to deflect in their formative positions 

 toward the palatal and the labial regions. That U is labial, and very 

 strongly labial at that, will appear upon the merest effort to sound it. 

 As must frequently be the case in all our studies of phonetics, the best 

 sense is frequently to be found in the best folly. In an English sub- 

 jacent to the dictionaries we encounter the perfectly recognizable locu- 

 tion (also an example of phonetic degradation) "oo's ducky or other 



*Samoan Phonetics in the Broader Relation, 27 Journal of the Polynesian Society, 86: 

 "We may pursue with interest an investigation into the vowel changes of the phases a-e, 

 a-e-o, a-o, the three phases which underlie the great bulk of vowel mutation in Polynesian. 

 As we look upon the chart of vowel positions with which this discussion opens and pencil 

 connecting lines from point to point in this group of changes, we find that we construct a 

 triangle in the very centre of the edifice of vowel structure. * * * We shall find a plain 

 explanation of the central triangle of the vowel changes if we regard the short a, e, 6 as 

 merely so many approximations toward a primal obscure short vowel which lies centrally 

 situated in respect of these three apical points. One congeries of the Polynesian tongues 

 may have had a vibration series and period which inclined its use of the primal obscure vowel 

 somewhat in the a direction, to another congeries the e component was the more grateful, 

 to yet another the tendency was in the 6 or labial grade. In all this we should not lose sight 

 of the fact that we must rest upon the recognition of these sounds by unattuned European 

 ears and their representation by so shabby an instrument as our English alphabet, which 

 lacks precision at every one of its six-and-twenty characters. Thus we have no hesitation 

 in taking this central triangle of a-e-6 out of the group of vowel changes in Samoan, of 

 regarding it as no more than a doubly muffled rendering of a single central sound, and of 

 removing it entirely from consideration among the criteria of vowel changes as dialectic 

 indicia." 



