312 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



271. 



un, a fish scale. 



Samoa : una, a scale of a fish, a plate of tortoise shell ; unafi, to scale 

 a fish. Futuna : una, tortoise shell ; unafi, fish scale. Niue : 

 una, tortoise shell; hinafi, fish scale. Maori, Marquesas, 



Rapanui, Mangareva: unahi, fish scale. Tahiti, Marquesas, 

 Paumotu: unahi, to scale a fish. Hawaii: una, tortoise shell; 

 unahi, fish scale. Tonga: uno, fish scale, tortoise shell. 

 Uvea: uno, fish scale. Fotuna: ano-na-unafi, id. Nuguria: 

 unafi, id. 



Motu: una, fish scale; unahia, to scale a fish. Aneityum: ninihen, 

 fish scale. 



Malay: unus, to pull out. 



Hebrew: halas, to pull out, to pull off. Arabic: h'ala'a, id. 



The Proto-Samoan stem is unaf . In general these closed stems are better 

 preserved in the Proto-Samoan migration than in the Tongafiti; here, 

 however, the strong stem oddly appears where least it would be expected. 

 Unafi is in form a verb ; the verb-formative suffix i is added to the simple 

 stem. In Samoa and Motu unafi is a verb and distinct from the noun, in 

 which the final consonant has been abraded ; in Maori, Mangareva, Futuna, 

 Niue, Fotuna, and Hawaii unafi is the noun and una is either absent or else 

 specialized to mean one of the plates in a head of turtle ; in the Marquesas 

 it is both noun and verb. 



The only phonetic variants in the Polynesian are these: in Niue the 

 frontal accretion by an aspirate, this seeming to be sporadic, since a primal 

 aspiration in the stem would have been represented in other languages 

 of the stock in some mutation form ; in the same speech the change of u to 

 i, a change which we shall find again only in Aneityum ; in Tonga and Uvea 

 the change of a to in the second vowel. 



In Motu, that very remote colony of the swarm which left Indonesia by 

 the southern gate, we find noun and verb used exactly as in Samoa. The 

 only other identification which Melanesia has afforded us is n-inihe-n of 

 Aneityum. In this the initial n is clearly the article ; the final n is observed 

 upon a great many noun stems which end in a vowel. For the initial vowel 

 of inihe we have already observed a precedent in Niue. The mutation f-h 

 is common in Polynesia and we have several instances of its occurrence in 



Aneityum. 



The Malay identification is not only presented as fact by Macdonald,but 

 has also received very respectful consideration by Tregear, who is by no 

 means cordially disposed to the Malayo- Polynesian theory. Yet to accept 

 this identification requires us to assume the equivalence of unaf and unus, 

 an assumption far too violent to be satisfactory ; and then in addition to 

 disregard the fact that in the sense of the Malay unus to pull out Samoa has 

 unusi, Tonga has unuhi and so have several of the Tongafiti languages. 



About the only point of identity upon which the Semitic could be hung 

 is the final s in Malay unus. Now that that is removed from consideration 

 the Hebrew can show no resemblance. 



