420 Transactions. 



It is not very surprising to find that many words have in Moriori a 

 meaning differing in greater or less degree from that in Maori. We may 

 notice of few of these* : Anga, front, intestines (aspect) ; hua, keel of a 

 canoe (hand-spike, lever) ; kamo, beckon, wave to (wink) ; kopa. veer, 

 turn (bent, folded) ; ma puna, ripple, v. (well up) ; moteatea, shine (fearful, 

 apprehensive) ; ngoi, weak (strength) ; oti, death, as well as (in Maori) 

 finished ; jxio, open, a. (strike) ; ro, rofo has extended its meaning beyond 

 merely " the inside/' and we have such expressions as ko ro ta pari, " over 

 the cliff " ; ko ro to wai, " above the water " ; tango, work (take, attempt) ; 

 toke, small (out of sight, gone). 



Of all the words recorded by Shand about 10 per cent, appear to be 

 from roots no longer preserved in Maori. It is possible that some of these 

 may, on further investigation, prove to be familiar roots disguised by some 

 of the letter changes discussed above. 



Mr. Shand remarks that " The language . . . retains manv words 

 more peculiar to tlie Rarotongan dialect'"; but he unfortunatelv left no 

 list of these, f and I have only succeeded in noticing one. A study of 

 these non-Maori words reveals in the case of about 12 per cent, identity 

 or close approximation with words in one or more of the leading Polynesian 

 languages. Thus we have ha, sacred {sa, Sa., Uv.) ; maramara, nausea 

 {malamala, Sa., Ta.) ; puni, many (Marq.) ; tau, reef (Ta.) ; topa, fall 

 (E.I., Mang., Marq., Ta.) ; tohua, public place (Mang., Marq.) ; ivhariii, 

 turn ifariu, Ta.) ; pehe, sing (Ta. ; pese, Sa., Tik.). Among the approxi- 

 mations the more interesting are hakana, coffin (Marq., hide) ; murumuru, 

 singe (Fut., warm oneself) ; nono, taut (Nine, bind ; no, bind, Uv.) ; po, 

 troubled (Sa., have war) ; poi, leap (Niue, run ; Tik., go) : ro, go (Tik., 

 oro, go) ; t'iei, not (Marq., tie ; Tik., sle ; Nuguria, teai ; Sikiana, seai) ; 

 tore, shoal, ridge (Sa., tolo, promontory) ; oko, many (Mang., Marq., strong ; 

 and apparently used to give a plural signification almost equivalent to 

 " many ") ; nuno, of no account (E.I., nunu, thin). 



This would seem to be the place to notice the causative prefix. The 

 usual form is hoko, but this varies to hoka, hoke, hoki, hok, ho, oko, oka, 

 oke, oki, ok, and o. In some cases in the vocabulary Shand uses whaka ; 

 but this does not, I think, occur anywhere in the published narrative 

 matter, and appears to be an adoption due to Maori influence. This 

 inference is supported by the fact that under the head hoko Shand men- 

 tions whaka only as the Maori equivalent. The normal form hoko suggests 

 comparison with ho'o, ho, in Hawaiian, which seems to be the onlv other 

 language in which the vowel is normally o, though in a few Tongan words 

 (oko replaces faka. 



In the affinities thus disclosed the Marquisan dialect figures most fre- 

 quently ; then follow those of Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii, and Tikopia : Easter 

 Island, Mangarewa, Tonga, Uvea, and Futuna falling a little behind. 

 Rarotonga falls in the last group ; but it must be pointed out that the 

 opportunities for a comparison with this dialect were somewhat restricted ; 

 and, in any case, it is a mistake to stress heavily numerical values in a 

 comparison of this nature, particularly when the numbers are small and 

 the available vocabularies far from complete. J 



* The meaning of the word in Maori is given in brackets, 

 t One, which he mentions in a note, is open to donbt. 



X Mr. Best gives (Trans. X.Z. Inst., vol. 48, pp. 435-36) thirteen Maiuiwi words, of 

 which one, kohi, appears in j\Ioriori with a sligJit modification in sense, kasfev for co7ne.. 



