TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 369 



north to New Zealand in the south, and from Easter Island in 

 the east to Koturaa in the west ; and is probably one of the 

 oldest living languages in the world. Mr. Abraham Fornander, 

 of Hawaii, believes it to be of Aryan origin, but Aryan of a pre- 

 Vedic and pre-Iranian era, and that its identity with the pre- 

 Malay dialects still existing in Malaysia is now fully esta- 

 blished ; and not only so, but that it is manifestly the older 

 surviving form of a once common language. Thanks to its 

 isolation for long ages, it has preserved the ancient simplicity 

 of its structure. The rudimentary simplicity of its alphabet 

 attests the early age at which it separated from its kindred in 

 the Asiatic Archipelago. 



To express the sounds of the dialect spoken by the New- 

 Zealanders only fourteen letters are used — five vowels and 

 nine consonants — none of which are sibilants ; this is a notice- 

 able peculiarity, as sibilants do exist in the Samoan, Rarotongan, 

 and Hawaiian dialects. Except in forming the sound nga, no 

 two consonants ever come together, and every syllable and 

 every word ends in a vowel, which renders the language, when 

 spoken, soft and euphonious. 



The local differences of dialect, though in Maori estimation 

 important, appear to us very slight, and not equal to the 

 differences which exist between the dialects of the northern 

 and western or southern counties of England. The most 

 marked peculiarities are found amongst the Ngatiawa, who 

 occupy the west coast of the North Island, and the Natives of 

 the South Island. The former have a peculiar mode of ex- 

 pressing the letter " h," by a kind of guttural catch in the 

 breath, which disposes of it in much the same way that our 

 cockneys get rid of it. The South-Islanders substitute " k " 

 for "ng," in the same way that the Hawaiian and other 

 Polynesians do. 



The grammar is peculiar as compared with the ancient and 

 modern languages of Europe."- Nouns are not inflected nor 

 the verbs conjugated in the same w^ay. To form the cases or 

 the plurals of nouns, or the mood, tense, or person of a verb, all 

 that is required is to put a particle before or after the word. 

 There is no auxiliary verb " to be," but its place is supplied by 

 a particle. Every regular verb has a causative as well as an 

 active and passive meaning. The pronouns are very complete, 

 and possess double duals and double plurals. One peculiarity 

 of the language is that the same word may be used as a noun, 

 a verb, a verbal noun, and an adjective, requiring merely the 

 addition of one or more particles to alter its meaning. 



The vocabulary is wanting in words to express abstract 

 ideas, but full of terms to describe outward objects. But there_ 





Vide Colenso, in Vol. i., Trans. N.Z. Inst. 



