482 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



a field finds no helps such as grammars and dictionaries. The 

 language has to be reduced to a written form, and the gathering 

 of it up from the lips of the natives is a tedious and laborious 

 work. 



Not only are the dialects of barbarous tribes far from being 

 meagre, but they abound especially in cencrete terms, and they 

 have niceties and peculiarities not found in the more widely 

 spoken languages of the globe. In giving a few of these niceties 

 and peculiarities I shall confine myself to the dialects of Aneityum 

 and Futuna, two of the most southerly islands m the New 

 Hebrides group, though my remarks will apply more or less to the 

 other islands, and to other groups. The language of Aneityum 

 belongs to the Papuan class and abounds in consonants, whereas 

 that of Futuna is allied to the Malayan, and every syllable ends 

 with a vowel. The two dialects in question ai^e very concrete, and 

 they are deficient in abstract terms ; sometimes for the noun the 

 verb has to be u&ed, e.g. "he is justified," rather than "his 

 justification." The lack of abstract terms, such as goodness, 

 righteousness, &c., is very marked. In translating the Bible and 

 other books, this difficulty is often met, and the utmost skill and 

 research are required to supply the deficiency. 



The English language has borrowed words from many other 

 languages, and it has been enriched thereby. The dialects of the 

 New Hebrides also are growing by additions from without. In 

 the tropics there is no snow, ice or hail, and till lately the New 

 Hebrideans knew nothing of horses, cattle, dogs or cats, of 

 swords, wheat, books ; thus the question arises, when new terms 

 must be introduced, from which language are they to be taken ? 

 In the Pacific the tendency was at first, in translating, say, the 

 New Testament, to take the corresponding Greek word and modify 

 it so as to be pronounceable by the natives. Lattei'ly the tendency 

 has been to use English words, as English is the foreign tongue of 

 which they know most, and which may yet become the common 

 or universal language of the islands. 



As the pronouns have four numbers, instead of the two in 

 English, it is easy to see that greater nicety must exist. There 

 are pronouns and corresponding parts of the verb "to be " for "we 

 two," "you two," " they two ;" " we three," " you three," they 

 three" (the Dual and Trial numbers) ; also for " we," " you " and 

 " they," when they stand for four or more. One accustomed to 

 English, with its comprehensive plural, does not take kindly at first 

 to the seeming hair-splitting of the New Hebrides dialects. If you 

 are speaking of two persons, though it be a horse and its rider, you 

 must use a particular word ; and if of three, another word, and if 

 of four, yet another word. For example, in Gen. i. v. 26, it is 

 said — "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." This 



