Brown. — Mir/rations of the Polynesians 191 



is to say, ' Dialekte ' ") as contrasted with the countless variety of not 

 merely dialects, but languages, in the Melanesian region and the Malayan 

 region, if properly considered, might have saved them from the latter 

 mistake. Even the few centuries which they seem to have in their minds 

 as covering the history of the human race in Polynesia would have developed 

 languages as distinct as, say, French and Spanish, or English and German. 

 If we were to take into account the marvellous similarity of the Polynesian 

 dialects not only in phonology and grammar, but in vocabulary, spread 

 over an oceanic region as wide as Europe and Asia combined, we would 

 not be far wrong in concluding that there have been thousands of migra- 

 tions from every island to every other island ; in short, a new sketch-map 

 of the Polvnesian migrations should so completely cross-hatch the central 

 Pacific that it would look black. In other words, for centuries at least 

 intercourse must have been almost unbroken amongst all the groups. If 

 this means anything, it means that for a prolonged period all the Poly- 

 nesians must have inhabited a large island or archipelago centrally situated, 

 and also quarantined from other regions under a social, if not political, 

 system that was practically a unity. The minute dialectic differences that 

 arose must have been kept in bounds by the constant social intercourse 

 that a single administrative system would allow — a system absolutely 

 different from that of Melanesia or of Malaysia. The differences are no 

 greater than those that separate the dialects of, say, Yorkshire and 

 Somerset, or Scotland and Middlesex. v 



The consideration of the culture conveys the same impression ; the 

 ethnological differences are as negligible as the linguistic when placed beside 

 the points of agreement. One can find as wide variations of culture and 

 dialect in the purely German part of the German Empire. They seem 

 to have arisen in the presence of each other, as well as of the predominant 

 community of culture. In other words, they must have slowly developed 

 during the immense period of time that certainly was taken to produce the 

 practical identity of culture and language. This identity would have been 

 shattered into strongly contrasted fragments had it been compelled to run 

 the gauntlet of the limitless variety of Malaysia and Melanesia, not to speak 

 of having to sail right in the teeth of the south-east trades, the only fairly con- 

 stant wind on that route, the contrary wind being brief, fitful, and cyclonic. 



There is, of course, a striking similarity between the languages of Poly- 

 nesia, Melanesia, and Malaysia that makes many speak of them unitedly 

 as the Oceanic language. But there is a phonological gulf between the 

 Polynesian dialects on the one hand and the Malaysian and, still more, the 

 Melanesian languages. Each of these two regions has its own range of 

 sounds, with considerable community ; but Polynesian has the peculiar 

 and distinguishing sounds of neither— it has the simplest range of sounds 

 that ever language had, all easily pronounceable by Aryan and, one may 

 add, by Japanese organs of speech. It has a similar contrast in voca- 

 bulary : with any one of the Malaysian or Melanesian languages except 

 Fijian it has never more than 20 per cent, of common words. It is the 

 grammar that has led to their classification as one language ; for none of 

 them have practically any formal grammar — they all move in an atmosphere 

 of particles, and there is a very considerable resemblance in the particles 

 used. But this absence of formal grammar is the commonest characteristic 

 of crossbred languages — i.e., languages that have resulted from the per- 

 manent or continuous settlement of a masterful people amongst a people 

 linguistically different ; the formal grammatical peculiarities of both are 



