20 The Languages of the Pacific. 
they afterwards settled, they almost though not quite completed the 
process; there are only a few words in their language that retain 
the r. They also showed the same tendency as the Hawaiian to 
substitute k for t¢, though the tendency did not proceed to the full 
length of the northern language. Kaoha is the Marquesan salutation 
equivalent to the Hawaiian aloha. Yet the k sometimes disappears 
in Marquesan; for it is only from eight to ten degrees south of the 
equator and has sufficient moist heat to create languor in the organs 
of speech. 
Thus we have in the different branches of this, the most 
primitive of languages, fully developed a phonological law as strict 
as Grimm’s Law amongst the Indo-European and far wider in its 
application; it dominates not merely the explosive consonants, 
(t, p, k) as in the Indo-European language, but the liquids and 
sibilants, 7, /, s, sh and h, and even the nasal consonants, , ng. 
If we know the form that a word common to most takes in any one 
of the Polynesian languages, we know the form it takes in every 
other, provided we know this strict sound law. There is one 
exceptional sound, ch or tz, which appears in Tongan and Moriori, 
whilst Tongan has a b instead of the usual p. This must be due 
to the long intercourse of Tonga with Fiji which had a phonology 
more Melanesian than Polynesian. Strangely enough this ts sound 
also belongs to Japanese, whilst the ch form of it belongs to Ainu. 
But b is purely Fijian and is in fact in that language mb. 
This regularity of consonantal change in the various dialects 
of Polynesian is a characteristic that completely differentiates it 
from all those to the west, the Micronesian and especially Papuan 
and Melanesian. In these there is phonological chaos in their rela- 
tionships. As a rule neighboring villages in Melanesia and Papua 
cannot understand each other’s language though only a few miles 
apart, whilst the Maori can understand the Rarotongan or Tahitian 
or Hawaiian after a brief acquaintance with the consonantal 
changes. And in Hawaiki this tendency to consonantal decay must 
have been widespread, the change that is complete in one or more 
of these groups occurs sporadically in all the rest. Take as an 
example the loss of k which is universal in Tahitian, Samoan and 
Hawaiian. In Maori it is quite common to find two words meaning 
the same, one with the k, the other without it; two or three will 
[8] 
