The Languages of the Pacific. 21 



suffice, kapo, to snatch, and apo, to grasp: kita, tight, fast, and /7a, 

 tight, fast ; and koti, to cut, and oti, finish. 



Fornander points out how some, if not all of these, are paralleled 

 in the Indo-European languages. The substitution of .!> in Samoan 

 for the h of the other dialects occurs also in Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic, 

 Iranian, Greek and Cynu-ic. The change of ng of Samoan, Maori 

 and other southern dialects into ;/ in Tahitian and Hawaiian has its 

 parallel in the substitution of ;; in Slavonic for the ng of Sanskrit, 

 Zend, Latin and other European tongues. The r was interchange- 

 able with / in Indo-European as in Polynesian, and both were often 

 changed into d in both linguistic spheres. It is not infrequent to 

 find roots in both spheres that have forms with and without the 

 <r or /, with and without the k, and with t for k. Further I have 

 found in my analysis of Polynesian roots and words that ni and / 

 are moveable prefixes like //, e.g. nioti, finished, and oti, finished; 

 nuDiiunann, rotten, and aiiuanu, disgusting; /;/(/, the back, and na, 

 the backbone; torctore, to split into strips, and Jiorc, to split ofl:" : tii, 

 to be strong, to stand, and //, to be firm; tnJii, to tattoo, and ;//;/, the 

 puncturing instrument. This occurs also in Indo-European roots. 

 In fact, as Fornander points out, the primitive Aryan language must 

 have had exactly the same range of consonants as Polynesian and 

 though the process was not carried so widely among the vowels, 

 the decadence and interchange of consonants had begun. The home- 

 land of the primeval Aryan is now accepted as in Europe between 

 the Baltic and the Black Sea, and that was a cold region in which 

 the organs of speech were capable of difl:erent consonantal sounds ; 

 whilst the environment of Polynesian after it reached the Pacific 

 was tropical and exactly suited to the decay of the consonants. 



But the vowels in Polynesian, though not so unstable as the 

 consonants still tend to interchange mutually, especially in the un- 

 accented syllable. A few instances will sufl:ce ; keo, or kca, white; 

 inut, uiiiii and oina, oven (here i = o^ii and u^a) ; tohunga in 

 Maori, kalinna in Hawaiian and tiifunga in Tongan and Samoan; 

 Hawaiian anoni and aniine. to mix up; Hawaiian api, the beating 

 of the pulse, and Maori kakapa, to throb; Hawaiian zveo and zvea, 

 red; Hawaiian eiilu, a branch cut ofif to be planted again, Maori Jutri, 

 a sprout, and Hawaiian //////', kalo tops for planting; Hawaiian io, 

 to flee from fear, and Maori ihi, to shudder. So the double vowel 



[9] 



