THE DICTIONARY OF EFATE. < 



establishes at once the great superiority of the Efate dictionary 

 over all Melanesian word collections. It is of inestimable value to 

 us by reason of its comprehensiveness as speech record. 



When we examine carefully and in detail this work in the aspect 

 of that which must represent its permanent value, that which will 

 remain after the demolition of the theories of which it is made the 

 vehicle, namely, its value as a dictionary of the Efate speech, our 

 criticism will fall broadly into two classes, the mechanical and the 

 sense characteristics. 



The former class is but a particularization of the postulate that 

 lexicography has grown into a science with no little exactitude in 

 its method. Without close study of the principles of the science, 

 it is wholly impossible for any student of language, no matter how 

 intimate may be his knowledge of the speech upon which his study 

 has been directed, to win success as a lexicographer solely by 

 reason of his familiarity with his language theme. Sage as Dr. 

 Macdonald is in all that pertains to the speech of Efate, he makes 

 all the typical errors of the unskilled dictionary-maker. 



In a dictionary the alphabetical order of entries is necessarily 

 supreme. Almost any page at random in this work will exhibit 

 instances where the entries capsize the alphabetical order. Our 

 author will undoubtedly explain his inversions on the score that 

 thus he is able to keep together stems and derivative forms which 

 on the alphabetical system would be scattered. It is hardly worth 

 while remarking that the user of a dictionary has the right to demand 

 that the word of which he is in search shall be found in its proper 

 place. I may note that in the most assiduous use of this dictionary, 

 extending over many months of close examination, I have not 

 succeeded in conquering my annoyance at the difficulty of finding 

 many a word which is not in the place where it should be; in fact 

 that I have been able to make use of it only after the compilation 

 of an index — an index to a dictionary ! 



If this is the case in the mere arrangement of the words on the 

 page, where a misplacement entails no greater hardship than a 

 search through one or more of the neighboring pages, what shall 

 we say of those forms which are secreted — it may be pages away 

 and under a different initial — in some entry from which they may 

 be extracted only through a knowledge of the language far beyond 

 those who are likely to use this work? For the exhibition of this 

 blemish we may cite the noun futei, the white ant, the entry con- 

 taining note of the variant forms mitoi and mitei; yet neither of 

 these forms, though equally in use, occupies its alphabetic position 

 by so much as the merest tag of a cross-reference; to a student of 

 Efate encountering the word mitei and seeking its meaning this 

 dictionary would offer no help. 



