300 Transactions. — MisceUaneoiis. 



translation of tcai-rarapa is "flashing water"; but if we go 

 further and. try to trace ivai and rapa to their source, giving a 

 derivation for either of the words, we shall be, in our present 

 state of knowledge, very devoid of wisdom. I say this as a 

 preface to laying before you a sample of the difficulties 

 besetting the pursuit of etymologies. I doubt the native 

 exponent of the primary meanings of words just as I doubt 

 the native explanation of some immeasurably ancient custom. 

 The native will tell you something, but how did he know? 

 Unless his knowledge is guided by some tradition whose 

 authenticity is indubitable (and they are few), he is simply 

 guessing, misled by sound-resemblance — keen guessing per- 

 haps, but without a substratum of fact, and perfectly in- 

 capable of proof. This applies to all languages, not to Poly- 

 nesian only. Panini was, doubtless, a reliable as well as an 

 ancient grammarian of the Sanscrit language ; but when 

 there is a question as to the real root of a word I should 

 prefer the opinion of a modern scholar, with the light of com- 

 parative philology falling on his work, to the most authorita- 

 tive dictum of the most learned Brahmin. I have shown in a 

 former paper='' how it is almost certain that the Maori word 

 ua (rain) was a worn-down form of surangi, and I have now 

 a more curious series of transpositions to show. No one 

 would be likely to consider from mere sound-resemblance that 

 such Maori words as rau, intngaioereivere , nape, ranga, and 

 here were of common origin or closely connected with each 

 other. 



I was led to consideration of this subject when reading a 

 Spanish book, " El Sanscrito en la lingua Tagalog," by the 

 well-known linguist Don T. H. Pardo de Tavera. One thing 

 in the work particularly attracted my attention — viz., that the 

 Tagal words given by him as allied to Sanscrit seemed to 

 arrange themselves into two divisions, early and late Sanscrit. 

 Of these, the long compound words have been apparently 

 adopted by a late borrowing, but the shorter words are such 

 as those found scattered through the Malay Archipelago. 

 Crawfurd noted some of these, and they may fairly be classed 

 as a stratum of language underlying the Malay and other 

 tongues that were brought down in the Mongolian invasion 

 from Asia. This stratum is composed of relics of that mother 

 speech of Arya that preceded Sanscrit, as it preceded all 

 European languages. Such words as Tagal acsaya, " to de- 

 stroy, disperse,'' is probably the Sanscrit kshaya, " slow de- 

 struction, ruin " (as the Kawi a A"s/;a7?iti.= Sanscrit kshavia), and 

 Sanscrit baliala, "a hundred millions," is the Tagal bahara, 

 " a weight of 150 kils.," through Malay bahara, also a mea- 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxiii., p. 543. 



