xi v 'INTR OD UCTIQN. 



Tonga Group. 



Samoa Islands. 



Phoenix Islands. 



Cook Islands. 



Society Islands. 



Austral Islands. 



Marquesas and Tuamotu Groups. 



Hawaiian Islands, North Pacific. 



TARAPON OR MICRONESIAN. 



Gilbert or Kingsmill Islands, North Pacific. 



Marshall Islands.* 



Caroline Islands. 



Mariana or Ladrone Islands. 



The Rev. S. J. Whitmee thus describes the three 

 varieties of speech which are used by the races in Coral 

 Papuan, Sawaiori, and Tarapon : 



' The following are the broad characteristics of the Papuan 

 languages . . . Consonants are freely used, some of the conso- 

 nantal sounds being difficult to represent by Roman characters. 

 Many of the syllables are closed. There is no difference be- 

 tween the definite and indefinite article, except, perhaps, in 

 Fiji. Nouns are curiously divided into two classes, one of 

 which takes a pronominal affix, the other which never takes 

 an affix. The principle of this division appears to be a near 

 or more remote connection between the possessor and the 

 thing possessed. Those things which are intimately connected 

 with a person, as the parts of his body, etc., take the pro- 

 nominal affix. A thing possessed merely for use would not 

 take this. For example, in Fijian the word hive means either a 

 son or a daughter, one's child, and it takes the possessive pro- 

 noun after it, as luvena; but the word ngone, a child, but not 

 necessarily one's own child, takes the possessive pronoun 

 before it, as nona ngone, his child, i.e., his to look after or 

 bring up. Gender is only sexual. Many words are used in- 

 discriminately as nouns, adjectives, or verbs, without change, 

 but sometimes a noun is indicated by its termination. In most 

 of the languages there are no changes in nouns to form the 

 plural, but a numeral indicates number. Case is shoAvn by 



