GRAMMAR 

 OF THE VITIAN LANGUAGE. 



ORTHOGRAPHY. 



THE Vitian language has twenty-one of the elements contained in our general alphabet. 

 These are a, b, d, , e, g, h, i, k, I, m, n, y, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, w, y. In the dialect of 

 Lakemba, the^' is added, to express the sound of t before i, which is nearly that of tsh, 

 or 'such as is heard in the English words Christian, question. 



Three of the consonants are never used except in combination with nasal sounds. The 

 b is always preceded by m, the d by n, and the g by y, as in the words tamba, ndon- 

 donu, wayga. The r is used both by itself, and preceded by n. In the latter case, the 

 sound of d is generally, though not always, inserted between the n and r, merely, it 

 would seem, for euphony, as in ndrau for nrau, mandrai for manrai, though the 

 latter is sometimes heard. When the missionaries first began to reduce the language to 

 writing, they analysed these nasal combinations, as we have done, and wrote them nd, 

 mb, ngg, ndr. They found, however, that the natives would not recognise the elements 

 thus separated, and in spelling always united them in the same syllable. They therefore 

 determined to alter their system, and write the combined sounds as simple letters, giving 

 to d the sound of nd, to b that of mb, and to g that of yg. The only exception is the 

 ndr, which they write dr, not having a character by which to denote it. It must not be 

 inferred from this, that the simple sounds b, d, and g, uncombined with n, are never 

 heard ; for the surd elements p, t, and k, are frequently softened in pronunciation to their 

 corresponding sonants, or rather, the natives make no distinction between the two 

 classes of letters. So in the combinations nd and yg, the last elements are frequently 

 heard as t and k, as Kantavu for Kandavu (written by the missionaries Kadavu), 

 wayka for icayga (waga). We do not recollect to have heard mb sounded as mp. 



For the sake of uniformity, and to facilitate the comparison of the different Oceanic 

 languages, it has been thought best to return, in this, to the original orthography of the 

 missionaries, and to write these combined sounds in full. For the same reason, the cha- 

 racter <? has been substituted for the c, which is used by them to express the soft English 

 th, as heard in thy, this ; and the letter y is used in place of the simple g, for the nasal 

 sound of ng in hang. 



