396 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



hitherto unknown Samoan material must be transcribed, must be 

 edited, must be translated, must be fortified by everj' contribution 

 from any source which can be brought to bear to enrich the narrative. 

 When thus reduced to permanent form as an object in itself, it becomes 

 available for the furtherance of this course of study. It must be 

 incorporated point by point with the dictionary, now in a considerable 

 stage of advancement. Its idiom must be studied, its usage must be 

 codified, all this for the establishment of our correct comprehension 

 of the grammar of the language. These two items, dictionary and 

 grammar, become again a second foundation upon which we are to 

 advance to the study of the position of this group of human languages 

 relative to the broader theme of human speech in general, and thus to 

 lead us to seize one of the most interesting problems of the development 

 of man, the thinking animal, finding the expression of thought in that 

 priceless possession of the group of consonants, no matter how scantily 

 acquired, no matter how clumsily enunciated, which establishes his 

 position as superior to the animal which can not speak and, therefore, 

 which can but imperfectly convince us of its ability to think. 



I have already mentioned the satisfaction w^hich it has proved to me 

 to find that Professor Rivers has been led through distinctly ethno- 

 logical channels along the same Melanesian path toward the beginning 

 of cultural and social advancement that my linguistic inquiries have 

 estabhshed so sohdly for me. If the Cambridge scholar and myself 

 had had an intercommunication of views upon Melanesia this general 

 confirmation of my opinion would have been lacking in cogencj-. 

 That he has been a student of my "Polynesian Wanderings," however, 

 is clearly evidenced by his comment in his recent work. ^Vhile he 

 does not accept my determination that the Tongafiti migration reached 

 Samoa without having left its impress upon Melanesian speech — and 

 this is a matter in which the ethnologist must accept the determination 

 of the philological student — he expresses himself as interested in the 

 many points of agreement of my conclusions with his own scheme of 

 the ethnological interpretation of the position of the Polynesians in 

 Melanesia. My investigation (in which the linguistic element is the 

 supreme factor, yet in which my determinations must be conditioned 

 by the factor of intimate personal acquaintance with the people under 

 examination) leads me more and more surely to confidence in the 

 belief that the Polynesian languages, assisted toward interpretation 

 by the Melanesian material employed, lead us inevitably in the direc- 

 tion of a beginning of human speech. 



I have used the expression '*a beginning" advisedly. The question 

 whether speech evolution has proceeded from a single center for all 

 speaking men is one upon which none may yet venture to pass. It 

 awaits decision based upon linguistic evidence which it is hoped that 

 the future will offer to us, just as we may not yet assume to pass upon 



