22 The Languages of the Pacific. 
au passes into o and ae passes into e. As | have proceeded in my 
analysis of the Polynesian languages, | become more and more 
astonished at the traditional statement that the Polynesian vowels 
are stable. What I should stay is that they are only a little less un- 
stable than the consonants, without any method or law in their insta- 
bility ; they are capriciously unstable whilst the Polynesian consonants 
change according to a fixed law. The most stable of the vowels 
and the most predominant is a. Likewise in Indo-European, there 
are ten roots in a for one in each of the other vowels. It is almost 
as strong in Polynesian. In other words a was the primeval vowei 
in both Indo-European and Polynesian; the others are but variations 
from it, the commonest series being a, ec, 1 and a, o, u. But the 
Indo-European tongues, as they have shifted away from their birth- 
land, have become more and more consonantal, which means that they 
have changed their climatic environment or the mothers of the 
generations. This increase of consonantalism has arisen largely 
from the elision of vowels. Thus it has come about that double 
consonants are fairly frequent, especially s with the other conson- 
ants. I faney that this has come about through using an emphatic 
prefix sa and then dropping its vowel. Take, for example, the root 
skar, to cut, and kar, English shear, in Latin curtus, mutilated, 
Anglo-Saxon here, an army, hargian, to harry. German Herzog, a 
duke, English harbour; thence heru, a sword, Gothic haerus. Root 
skal, to split, Anglo-Saxon scolu, a division, and hal, to scale, to 
strike, Anglo-Saxon healt, halt, hilt and hild, war, Latin percellere, 
to thrust, to strike, clades, slaughter, gladius, a sword; root skal, 
to be liable for fine for having killed, Anglo-Saxon seyld, a debt, 
should, shall; root ala, an awl, Anglo-Saxon al; root ar, to cut, to 
loosen, Latin aratrum, a plough, arvwim, a field plowed but not sown, 
earth, ear, to plow, to till; Polynesian kari, to dig; Hawaiian ali 
a scar. Take one or two instances of other letters, root stut, to 
push, Latin tunderc, to beat with repeated strokes; German stossen, 
to push, to strike; root slit, to tear, German schieissen, to slit, to split; 
English slice, and Latin laedere, to strike or dash with force against 
any thing; root slu, to shut, German schliessen, English slot, and 
root luk, to shut, English lock; root svar, to speak, to swear, to 
answer; and var, to speak, Latin verbum, word. 
We can see then that the Indo-European languages have as 
[ 10 | 
