844 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 283. 



sound. The Kanaka ear is as delicate in 

 detecting vowels as it is dull in the distinc- 

 tion of consonants. When Isaac Pitman 

 invented phonography he used the straight 

 line and parts of a circle to represent the 

 English consonants. They were classified 

 into labials, dentals, gutturals, liquids, 

 etc., and the same signs, made heavy or 

 light, were applied to different sounds of 

 the same class. Now it happens that his 

 classes are precisely those in which the 

 Polynesian ear makes no distinction. For 

 instance, with the labials p and h, we may 

 say either taburoa or kapuloa ; we may say 

 Eonorourou or Honolulu. As a matter of 

 fact, the first form is invariably found in 

 the earlier accounts of the islands. Ask a 

 Kanaka which is right, taburoa or kapuloa, 

 the reply will invariably be that his ear de- 

 tects no difference. The term means great 

 taboo and is used now as an injunction 

 against trespass. This shows that the Ha- 

 waiians, in their inability to distinguish 

 between b and p, d and t, g and k, I and r, 

 and V and w, are following a natural law of 

 human utterance, namely, that certain 

 sounds similarly made readily coalesce, and 

 without impairing the context may be used 

 interchangeably. The fact also became evi- 

 dent when the problem of writing English 

 phonographically was confronted. In pho- 

 nographic characters, p and b have the same 

 length and slope. They only differ in shad- 

 ing, a detail of minor importauce, since the 

 substitution of one sound for the other in 

 the spoken word involves little uncertainty 

 in the meaning. 



Two invariable rules lie at the founda- 

 tion of all Polynesian speech. Every word 

 must end in a vowel, and no two conso- 

 nants can be pronounced without at least 

 one vowel intervening. Only one word has 

 ever been printed in Hawaiian with two 

 consonants together. That word is Kristo 

 Christ. But any number of vowels may be 

 pronounced consecutively, as in the word 



hooiaioia meaning certified, where we have 

 eight continuous vowel sounds. Compare 

 this with the English word ' strengths,' 

 where we have nine letters and only one 

 vowel. Before attempting the pronuncia- 

 tion of this word an Hawaiian would have 

 to transform it by the introduction of at 

 least eight vowels. No less would suflBce 

 to make it utterable by Polynesian organs 

 of speech, and the probability is that many 

 more would be interjected in the hopeless 

 struggle to give birth to such an angular 

 product of English speech. Take also the 

 expression, E i ae oe ia ia, meaning Speak 

 thou to him there. This is a complete sen- 

 tence of six words in which not one con- 

 sonant appears to mar euphonic beauty or 

 to disturb the easy liquid flow of vowels so 

 dear to the Hawaiian ear. 



The importance of the vowels in the Poly- 

 nesian languages is such that if we open a 

 Hawaiian dictionary we find, not the order 

 of letters given in English, but a totally 

 different one. First come all words begin- 

 ning with the vowels a e i o u ; then those 

 beginning with the consonants h klm np 

 w. This completes the list of all pure Ha- 

 waiian sounds— twelve in number. Nine 

 additional consonants, bdfgrstvz, have 

 been introduced from foreign tongues, be- 

 cause new words took root in the language. 

 In passing, we may say that the Hawaiian 

 consonants are probably the softest and most 

 effeminate of the Oceanic group. In a dic- 

 tionary of 502 pages, 111 were found devoted 

 to the vowels, 387 to the native consonants, 

 and 5 to the foreign ones, so that the words 

 introduced are about one per cent, of the 

 total number. 



Cacophony. — There is a natural aversion 

 in most languages to the consecutive repe- 

 tition of the same sound, and especially so 

 between words. An example is given on a 

 following page, under ' syntax,' of affirma- 

 tion by means of the article he. The phrase 

 he pono ole, however, is never pronounced as 



