The Languages of the Pacific. 17 



nesian word for interval or "space between"; 8 (zvari{)=io — (space 

 between or minus ji*, 9 (iz^'a )^=onii — from 10. Lima, the word 

 for five, is not without trace in European, though not as a numeral. 

 There is a European root form, "ri>iia," meaning "row, iniiiibers, 

 z'erse." In Old Norse riin=icalciidar, I'd'se. In old Irish riui= 

 n limber. In Old High German Rim^roi^', niimher, German Reim= 

 English rhyme. Compare the Greek arithiiios, a number, iierifos, 

 countless. It is from the same root as ra, to arrange, to fit, Latin 

 reri, to think, ratio, read, reckon, hundred. The original form is 

 ra, Maori rarangi, line, rank, row. The ri form is seen in zchakarite, 

 to arrange, put in order, Hawaiian like, to be like. Many of the 

 languages use lima not only for "five" but for "hand," evidently 

 meaning "the counter,"" but in Maori and Fijian the word for hand 

 is "ringa," implying that "ma," was felt to be an affix, just as nga is. 

 We may say then that the Polynesian ancestors were only feeling 

 their way up first beyond three and then beyond five. They were 

 feeling their way towards "tekau" which first meant "7/;^ company," 

 "the lot." and, when they counted beyond, came to be "ten" or in 

 some "eleven." (Compare kaii, company, \ot,= iigahii-ru, Gilbertese 

 tengaiin=^io, Tongan //^bundle, kehiii, flock. ) The Hawaiian "umi" 

 easily meant at first "the measure."" The usual Polynesian ngahuru, 

 for "ten," becomes in Malay "sapiiloh" by prefixing "^a"=one, to 

 piiloh, ecjuivalent to Jiiirii, the hair. Sapuhh means the bunch of 

 hairs, nga, the plural article in Maori, being replaced by sa, and 

 hunt, brushwood, coarse hair, in English "wool." 



The true classitication of linguistic affinities is not by their 

 grammar, but by their phonology, i. e. the range of sounds and 

 sound laws that belong to them. The organs of speech do not 

 change unless the climatic environment is changed, or the mothers. 

 To shift from the temperate zone to the tropics relaxes all the 

 tissues, including the tissues of the speech organs ; to shift in the 

 opposite direction gives them greater tensity and vigor. And if 

 at the age of the moulding of a man, i. e. from infancy to seven 

 years old, he is set in a difl:'erent speech-environment from that of 

 his ancestry his speech organs will be different. It is the mother 

 or nurse that creates the phonological capacity of a man or woman. 

 The speech organs are set practically for life during the first seven 

 years, the period when it is the mother that is the dominant influence. 



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