TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE, 



18 8 5. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Art. I. — The Maori in Asia. 



By E. Tregear. 



[Rend before the Philosophical Society, Wellington, 12th August, 1885.] 



One who is an authority on Philology (Dr. Latham), when com- 

 menting on the Polynesian language, says " The first thing 

 which commands attention is its thorough insular or oceanic 

 character." 



It is this mistake, made by all the other European scientists 

 also, which it is my endeavour to correct ; so far from being 

 insular, its every word is kindred to the speech of the mainland, 

 and, far from being oceanic, it stretches from Iceland and the 

 Isle of Man across the continents of Europe and Asia. 



In reading this paper, I must consider the argument used in 

 " The Aryan Maori " as being in the possession of my hearers. 

 I have arrived at the conclusion, mainly by the evidence of lan- 

 guage, that the Maori is a branch of that great race which 

 conquered and occupied the major part of Europe, Persia, and 

 India. Of the three divisions of language, the monosyllabic, 

 the agglutinated, and the inflected, the Aryans have been sup- 

 posed to possess the characteristic of an inflected grammar, 

 while the Maori has been set down among the agglutinated 

 group. But, however true it may be that the Aryan languages 

 are now inflected, I think it can hardly be pretended that they 

 were always thus ; grammar is a mere matter of development, 

 and the primitive tribes from whom we are all descended 

 troubled themselves little with the intricacies of scholasticism ; 

 the " bare-limbed men with stone axes on their shoulders " who 

 conquered Europe had not conquered the Greek grammar, nor 

 had the victors over the Nagas of India evolved the " rules of 

 external and internal Sandhi " to vex the soul of the student of 

 Sanscrit. The Maori has crystallized his speech in that mode 

 which the primitive Aryans used, perhaps 4,000, perhaps 6,000 

 years ago. 



