77/r LaiigiiU'^es of flic Pacific. 29 



to resist the conclusion that Pol}'nesian came from Europe many 

 thousands of years ago. 



It looks as if this simple, primeval language came in with the 

 first-comers in the old stone age. the potteryless migration that 

 alone brought women into the central and eastern Pacific. For it 

 has remained the most primitive language in the world as far as 

 phonology is concerned, it is the women that mould the sound 

 range, accent and pronunciation of a language. The mothers have 

 the senses of their children completely in their power during the 

 plastic age of tlie organs of speech, from one to seven ; they 

 dominate the phonology as they dominate the household arts like 

 pottery ; whilst the men have the vocabulary in their hands, its 

 scope and extensions. It seems almost inevital)le then that the main 

 features of the Pc^lynesian tongue, especially the sound-range and 

 the sound-laws, go back t(j the old stone age in Europe. In that 

 case we must conclude that the Aryan language started on its career 

 from twenty to twenty-five thousand years ago, and that philological 

 students of Latin and Greek and the modern European languages 

 nuist study Polynesian in order to see the type from which these 

 s])rung and the final analysis of their words and roots. This long 

 period of time is necessary to explain the vast extent of the earth 

 over which first Indo-European had spread even before our era. 

 and the still greater extent over which Polynesian elements have 

 "spread. Eoth have more than half circled the world. And if the 

 two are one, we have the most extraordinary language that the 

 world has seen. And out of the divisions of it, English is drawing 

 tovv'ards becoming as nearly the universal language as one language 

 can ever be. It is a great thing to have for one's language one of a 

 tv])e tliat has, as Polynesian has. traveled across half the world by 

 land and then doubled back as far bv sea. 



