VI PREFACE. 



engaged upon a group of languages of the most elemental character, a 

 speech wherein the parts of speech have but just begun to make their 

 appearance. That in itself would be matter of no great moment, 

 for we know many languages of the isolating type. That which is 

 of particular value herein is that we find ourselves engaged with a 

 language family in which we can discover the beginnings of human 

 speech. We find ourselves made witnesses of the man who can 

 emit a cry because he has the animal equipment of a throat and 

 lungs, and we see that man, with a sentient mind to give him the 

 impulse of progress, striving by rude and uncouth mouthings to 

 attain to facility in the use of the consonants which make speech. 

 It will be an acceptable reward of pleasant toil if it shall be found 

 that the Polynesian language family is capable of affording us a 

 true knowledge of a genesis of the speech of man. 



