210 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



117. 



siuer (siwer), suara, suuara, surata, to walk, proceed, go away; sisiuer, 

 susuara, to walk about. 

 Samoa : savali, savavali, to walk. 

 Arabic: safara, sifar\ to make a journey, to go away. 



The identification is not wholly satisfactory nor yet to be set aside, for 

 we have no such chain of data as would enable us to make a sure determi- 

 nation. The v-u(w) mutation is sufficiently frequent to call for no remark; 

 thus siuer and suuara are accounted for and suara is but a slight and single 

 step removed. But surata is not by any means in the same line and is 

 impossible of association. In the reduplicated forms lies the strongest 

 argument against identity ; it will be observed that while Samoa duplicates 

 the latter member, savavali, Efate duplicates the former, sisiuer. In the 

 discussion of a single item in the great topic of duplication (Duplication by 

 Dissimilation, 30 American Journal of Philology, 173) I have presented the 

 argument in proof of the determination of the relative importance of the 

 two parts of a composite word as revealed in the duplication. It is here 

 seen that in Samoa the latter element, bearing the duplication, is of the 

 more importance. We can scarcely believe it possible that this assignment 

 of importance is but a modern development in Polynesia; it surely must 

 have been even better recognized in the earlier phase when they were migrant 

 through Melanesia. If siuer be a Polynesian loan word, and I have already 

 remarked (1. c. 180) upon the fact that wherever the words which undergo 

 duplication in Efatd are susceptible of identification they are uniformly of 

 Polynesian stock, it seems strange that in adopting the Polynesian mech- 

 anism of duplication these Melanesians should have misapplied it. Of the 

 twenty-five identifiable duplications in that paper thirteen correspond 

 exactly with the Samoan duplicated forms; eleven are not comparable 

 because of the absence of duplication in these words in Samoan ; one only 

 is at variance with the Samoan duplication, and in this case the Samoan 

 has two words of the same sound but of different sense, only one of which 

 is duplicated, and the duplicated Efate form corresponds with the form 

 of the duplicated Samoan, but with the sense of the unduplicated, and it 

 would seem that the Samoan had but specialized to avoid the chance of 

 error. We may, then, accept the general principle that Efate duplicates 

 the same elements as Samoan. This determination, and I must regard 

 it as based on good grounds, militates against this identification. 



The Semitic identification proposed is altogether too good in form when 

 we regard the length of their separation from the putative common stock. 

 The Samoan has but the single sense of walking, the act of such locomotion 

 with no slightest suggestion of either terminus. The sense of the Arabic 

 bears no relation to the Samoan. It is only in Efate that the two signifi- 

 cations are brought together so that a transition might be possible. If 

 the two words are formally identifiable Efate has the walking sense. 

 Unfortunately our author's propensity to make out his case at any cost 

 is now so well comprehended that little dependence can be placed in his 

 ingeniously devised transition through "proceed" to "go away." 



