DATA AND NOTES. 



319 



web or cloth covering the leaves of coconut trees, a sack. 

 Mangareva: kaka, the envelope of coconut leaves. Tahiti: 

 aa, the fibrous substance which grows on the coconut, the husk 

 or covering on the young breadfruit branches. Hawaii: aa, 

 the cloth-like covering near the roots of coconut leaves, a coarse 

 kind of cloth. 



Viti: waka, the fibers or roots of a tree. Rotuma: va'a, root. 

 These all signify root : 



Murray Island : sip kak. Duke of York : akar. New Britain : 

 okor. Bugotu: oga. Savo: ogni. Arag: garo. Alite: 

 kalokalo. Lo: gurah. Merlav: gari. Gog: gerin. Mota: 

 gariu. Motlav: goren. Sasar: gorgi. Pak, Alo Teqel: 

 gergi. Volow : girigi. Mosin : sigrigi. Omba : goarigi. 

 Maewo : goarii. Lakon : gegi. Marina : goe. 



Malay: akar, the roots of a plant, a scandent plant, the parts of a 

 plant that climb ; akar, root, origin, principle, foundation (this 

 last word is said by Crawfurd to be Arabic). Kayan: aka, 

 root. Salayer, Gah: akar, id. Sula: kao-akar, id. 



Arabic : 'akka, 'akak, to be split, fissured ; 'akko, a fissure ; 'akikat' , a 

 bag; l awako, small sprouts shooting from the upper part of a 

 palm; 'ikkano, shoots sprouting from the roots of palms and 

 vines; 'akka, to send forth such shoots from the roots. 



A. 

 In aka we find two words alike in form, aka a root and aka the vine. In 

 general these two words have exactly the same form, but in Niue and Viti 

 they are distinguished and in practically the same way. The root signifi- 

 cation in Niue is expressed by vaka (vaka is also canoe) ; in Viti waka (canoe 

 being wangga), and Rotuma va'a (vaka being canoe) are the same. If this 

 ^-initial were radical we should expect its recurrence somewhere along the 

 line ; the frontal accretion of Polynesian stems is so unusual that we are 

 without data for its intelligent study. The plant name in Niue is aka, as 

 in the rest of Polynesia. In Viti it is yaka. This Viti ^-initial is of great 

 interest and therefore I give in the following list all the instances in which 

 I have identified the word in which it is used with a Polynesian stem. 



In yambia and in both identifications of yava it will be seen that it is not 

 merely y-initial but the syllable ya. There is nothing in the life-history of 

 these words (cf. 276 for the only other instance included in these data) to 

 indicate that the Viti y-initial retains the impress of something radical. 

 Yet one must regard the impression unavoidably acquired that Viti yaka, 

 e. g., retains some delicate intonation of vowel which characterized in the 

 Proto-Samoan the initials of these words. 



