1777- THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 4(>7 



used a word which expresses an indefinite number. 

 A short specimen, selected from the larger vocabu- 

 lary, is here inserted, with the corresponding words, 

 of the same signification as used at Otaheite, on 

 the opposite column ; which, while it will give, 

 as we may say, ocular demonstration of their being 

 dialects of the same language, will, at the same 

 time, point out the particular letters by the in- 

 sertion, omission, or alteration of which the varia- 

 tions of the two dialects from each other have been 

 effected. 



It must be observed, however, that our vocabu- 

 laries of this sort must necessarily be liable to great 

 mistakes. The ideas of those from whom we were 

 to learn the words were so different from ours, that it 

 was difficult to fix them to the object of inquiry. Or, 

 if this could be obtained, to learn an unknown 

 tongue from an instructor who did not know a single 

 word of any language that his scholar was conversant 

 with, could not promise to produce much. But even, 

 when these difficulties were surmounted, there still 

 remained a fruitful source of mistake. I mean, in- 

 accuracy in catching exactly the true sound of a 

 word to which our ears had never been accustomed, 

 from persons whose mode of pronunciation was, in 

 general, so indistinct, that it seldom happened that 

 any two of us, in writing down the same word from 

 the same mouth, made use of the same vowels in re- 

 presenting it. Nay, we even very commonly differed 

 about consonants, the sounds of which are least liable 

 to ambiguity. Besides all this, we found, by expe- 

 rience, that we had been led into strange corruptions 

 of some of the most common words, either from the 

 natives endeavouring to imitate us, or from our hav- 

 ing misunderstood them. Thus, cheeto was univer- 

 sally used by us to express a thief, though totally 

 different from the real word in the language of 

 Tongataboo. The mistake arose from a prior one 



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