232 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



Mota, Omba: rave, to catch (of fish). Lo: rav, id. New Britain: 

 rapa, to take by force. Nggela, Belaga : lavi, to take. Maewo : 

 lailai, id. Arag: lai, id. 



Arabic: raja' a, to take up, to carry. 



Samoan lave has a line of significations none of which is found outside 

 its immediate vicinage in Nuclear Polynesia. The nearest approach to the 

 Efate signification is in lavea, and that is not to be supported against the 

 first objection that may suggest itself. 



The sense of taking extends from Efate to Fotuna and thence eastward 

 to Rarotonga, Tahiti, Mangareva, Maori. The carrying sense is found in 

 Nine. The two come together no nearer than Hawaii. 



The specialized use in relation to fishing is absent from Efate; but its 

 presence in Tonga, Mangareva and the Marquesas of Polynesia, and in Mota, 

 Omba and Lo of Melanesia is amply suggestive of a common source. The 

 other Melanesian identifications call for no comment, except that in Arag 

 and Maewo; if this identification be acceptable, we have no other example 

 in all this material of the vanishing of a v. These two, therefore, remain a 

 little more than doubtful. 



153- 

 leo, le, lo, lu, voice, speech, word. 



Samoa: leo, voice, sound, noise. Tonga: le'o, voice. Futuna: 

 leo, id. Uvea, Nuguria, Niue: leo, voice, sound. Hawaii: 

 leo, voice, sound, speech, language. Maori, Tahiti, Mangareva: 

 reo, id. Rarotonga: reo, voice. Paumotu: reko, voice, speech ; 

 reo, the air of a song. Rapanui: reo, voice, language, air of a 

 song, a tale; hakareoreo, a story, to tell. Aniwa: noreo, voice. 

 Marquesas: co, ceo, id. Uvea: lea, to say, to speak to, to 

 accost, to address. Tonga : lea, speech, language. Niue : lea, 

 to speak. Rotuma : Ho, voice. 



Sesake, Arag, Mota, Omba, Maewo: leo, the voice. Mota: lea, 

 speech. Maewo: leo, law. Santo: liona, the voice. 



Arabic: la"a' t to speak; la"w', sound, voice; lo"at, word, language, 

 dialect. 



The Proto-Samoan stem is leo, an open form and thereby readily distin- 

 guishable from leo (31 to watch, which stems in leos. 



The general sense is the sound of the voice in speech or in song, and to 

 this signification the word is confined in Samoa, Tonga, Futuna, Uvea, 

 Niue, Aniwa, Rarotonga, Paumotu and the Marquesas, that is to say all 

 of Nuclear Polynesia with three tongues of the eastward migration ; and the 

 same is true of the occurrence of the word in the New Hebrides except 

 Efate. If Paumotu reko be really referable to this stem the interpolation 

 of the k is anomalous. To this idea of the sound of the voice is added a 

 connotation of the product of the voice, and we find the signification of 

 speech, language, in Hawaii, Maori, Tahiti, Mangareva, in the Paumotu 

 subject to the doubt already noted as to reko, and in Efate. In the latter 

 we pass still farther into particulars with leo meaning a word. In Maewo 

 the secondary meaning ho law receives no confirmation elsewhere. On 

 Tonga lc l o see note 145. 



