230 PHILOLOGY. 



New Zealand, Rarotongan, Mangarevan, Tahitian, and Hawaiian of 

 manuscript grammars and vocabularies, furnished to us also by the 

 missionaries in some of the islands and of printed works of the same 

 kind, relating to four of the dialects. Of the MSS., the most impor- 

 tant are a brief grammar of the Samoan by Mr. Heath, missionary at 

 the Navigator Islands, and a vocabulary of the language from Mr. 

 Mills, of the same group ; the first part of a grammar of the Tongan 

 (as far as the pronouns) from Mr. Rabone of Tongatabu, a vocabulary 

 of the Nukuhivan from Mr. Armstrong of Honolulu,* and one of the 

 Mangarevan dialect from M. Maigret, formerly missionary at the 

 Gambier Islands, and now resident at Oahu. Of printed works, the 

 only ones which have been of much service are the Grammar of the 

 Tahitian, published in 1823, by the missionaries at the Society Group, 

 the invaluable Hawaiian vocabulary of Mr. Lorrin Andrews, and the 

 notes on the peculiarities of this language, by the same gentleman, 

 in the Hawaiian Spectator, for October, 1838. These publications, 

 however, have been rather consulted than copied, the rules and 

 examples given in the following pages having been drawn almost 

 entirely either from manuscript notes, or from the translations. Mar- 

 tin's Vocabulary of the Tongan, and Lee's of the New Zealand 

 dialect have been used in preparing the Lexicon. All that is given 

 concerning the languages of Fakaafo and the Paumotu Group rests on 

 the authority of the writer, as likewise the remarks upon the pronun- 

 ciation of the various dialects. A familiarity with the general struc- 

 ture of the Polynesian speech, and with the minuter peculiarities of 

 some of the dialects, which was acquired during three years spent 

 among the islands, and devoted chiefly to this study, has much 

 facilitated the work of compiling the Grammar, and may, perhaps, be 

 considered as, in some degree, a guaranty for its general correctness. 



* In the first draft of the Grammar, this vocabulary, with one obtained at Tahiti, from 

 a native of Tahuata, and the article, by the Rev. William P. Alexander, in the Hawaiian 

 Spectator for January, 1838, entitled the " Marquesian and Hawaiian Dialects Com- 

 pared," furnished all the information which we possessed relative to the Nukuhivan 

 dialect. More ample materials for giving a complete account of that idiom have since 

 been obtained in the MSS. of Mr. Crook, referred to on page 136 of this volume, and in 

 the " Lettres sur les lies Marquises, par le P. Mathias G * * *" (Gracia ?), published 

 at Paris, in 1843. 



