Teegeak. — The Aryo- Semitic Maori. 407 



" grammarian with a theory," indeed, who finds Malagasy, 

 Papuan, Malay, and Maori grammars identical. The Malagasy 

 is so full of words adopted from English, French, Portuguese, 

 Arabs, and the neighbouring African tribes (as well as Malays), 

 that comparison is infinitely dangerous and difficult. 



Mr. Atkinson made a very long quotation from Professor 

 Whitney's "Life and Growth of Language," with the object of 

 overwhelming me by an authoritative statement as to the only 

 manner in whicb etymologies of differing languages may be com- 

 pared. The main point in the quotation is, that "whereas a 

 close verbal resemblance between the nearly-related tongues has 

 the balance of probabilities in its favour, one between only 

 distantly-related tongues, or those regarded as unrelated, has 

 the probabilities against it." Who, then, are to be the judges 

 as to the languages to be considered related or unrelated, before 

 they have been compared? For centuries the classical languages 

 of Europe and the classical language of Hindustan were sup- 

 posed to be unrelated, and it is only in our own generation that 

 the claim, fiercely contested, of the Celtic- speaking peoples to 

 be admitted into the Aryan family was acknowledged. Plenty 

 of sarcasm and ridicule (now forgotten), plenty of loud, frothy 

 denial was poured upon the advocates of the Aryo-Celtic theory. 

 To use the name of Professor Whitney is to charm with the 

 wand of one whose name is respected by every educated English- 

 man, and a two-fold measure of this respect is due from those 

 who are students of language ; but can anyone believe that 

 Professor Whitney advocates the method followed in European 

 linguistics being applied to the study of Polynesian ? That is 

 to say : that the literary and historic method should be applied to 

 the study of races having no literature and no historical records? An 

 idea so brilliant cannot be Professor Whitney's — it was reserved 

 for an Antipodean writer to evolve this spasm of genius. Must 

 we be contented never to compare the Polynesian language with 

 any other until we obtain their literary records? I decline 

 to do this, and I will quote the words of one greater than 

 Professor Whitney concerning this question. Professor Max 

 Miiller, in his " Introduction to the Science of Keligion," p. 97, 

 says : — 



" My chief object in publishing, more than twenty years ago, 

 my letter to Bunsen ' On the Turanian Languages,' in which 

 these views were first put forward, was to counteract the dan- 

 gerous dogmatic scepticism which at that time threatened to 

 stop all freedom of research, and all progress in the Science of 

 Language. No method was then considered legitimate for a 

 comparative analysis of languages except that which was, no 

 doubt, the only legitimate method in treating, for instance, the 

 Romance languages, but was not, therefore, the only possible 

 method for a scientific treatment of all other languages. No 



