Fox. — The Comparison of the Oceanic Languages. 467 



The settlement of the peoples of the Melanesian group must 

 have taken place long before that of the Polynesian peoples, 

 because the languages of the former group difier much more 

 among themselves than those of the latter group do. A student 

 of Polynesian languages finds a marked agreement between the 

 languages of two Polynesian islands, such as Tonga and New- 

 Zealand, once a regular change of letters, such as h and s, / and 

 ich, I and r. has been made. In fact, a Native of the one can 

 make himself understood by a Native of the other. This is net 

 at all the case in Melanesia. A Native of the Banks Islands 

 would be quite unintelligible to a Native of the New Hebrides, 

 or southern or northern Solomons, or Fiji. Students of Poly- 

 nesian languages do not perhaps realise this. They suppose that 

 the Melanesian languages agree among themselves as much as 

 the Polynesian languages do ; but the diversity of their vocabu- 

 laries is really remarkable. In fact, the vocabulary of the 

 northern Solomons shows more agreement with that of the 

 northern New Hebrides than with that of the Banks Group, 

 which lies midway between the two. All this points to ancient 

 settlement and long isolation. The settlement of the Eastern 

 Pacific must have been much more recent, and the constant 

 state of warfare in which the Melanesians lived, their isolation 

 and lack of trade enterprise in most cases, all tended to add to 

 that divergence in their languages which long settlement would 

 naturally produce. 



Some words have been introduced into certain Melanesian 

 languages from other kindred groups or from foreign sources. 

 The Mota word for cloth is siopa. The Mota people themselves 

 say that they obtained this word from a party of Polynesian 

 foreigners (" Tongans ") who settled at Qakea, a little island 

 off Mota, more than sixty years ago and remained there for a 

 short time : thus siopa, from the Polynesian siapo, by meta- 

 thesis. Here we have a distinct Polynesian element in Mota, 

 a Melanesian language. Kumara is said to be the word now used 

 for " sweet potato " in Fiji, the name being formeiiy a-kawai-ni- 

 vavalagi. Here is a distinct Polynesian element in Fijian. It 

 would be most interesting to know more of these real cases of 

 borrowing among the different groups. Of course, English words 

 in Native dress are now common. Sem in Mota means " to 

 scold," and owes its origin to the character of a trader who 

 lived at Mota, Mr. Sam Fletcher. The shell used as a chisel at 

 Mota is called live ; it was not known at Raga, where they call 

 a chisel bisope, because these tools were first obtained from 

 Bishop Patterson. In languages so capable of coining new words 

 local passing terms may become permanent, and even displace 

 older forms. 



