SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 283. 



thinking they find little use for relatives ; 

 but the meaning is just as unequivocal as 

 though the sentence were constructed after 

 a Latin model. 

 For example, 



ka'u poe Jce iJci Tea poe nana Tea laau, 

 means literally, 



My children are those for them the timber ; 

 or, freely translated : 



My children are those wlio will own the timber. 



Absence of Verbs. — In this last sentence 

 we see several peculiarities. In the first 

 place, is used simply for euphony. It 

 cannot be translated into English. Then 

 the word poe has no equivalent. In the 

 next place, there is no verb. Some of the 

 strongest and clearest afclrmations are made 

 in Hawaiian without any kind of a verb ; 

 there is no verb in the language to express 

 the idea of existence.- The structure of the 

 idiom does not require it. Neither is there 

 any verb to express having or possessing, 

 nor to express duty or obligation, nor to 

 affirm any quality as belonging to any sub- 

 stance ; but these ideas are necessary in the 

 communication of thought. How, then, do 

 the Hawaiians express them ? In various 

 ways : 



I. By particles of afiSrmation, as : he aka- 

 mai kona, a skill his — i. e. , he has skill. A 

 construction similar to this is found in He- 

 brew and other Semitic languages. 



II. By he, a simple article, as : he pono 

 ole, a good not — i. e., good does not exist 

 therein. In other words, it is unrighteous. 



III. Affirmation is sometimes expressed 

 by the pronouns ia, eia, keia, etc., as : 



ia ha poe i hele mai (the o is emphatic). 

 (Those were) the people who came. 



In fact, verbs play a very subordinate part 

 in the language and are seldom emploj^ed, 

 since their place is supplied, as occasion 

 arises, by other parts of speech. Take the 

 sentence that appears on the Hawaiian 

 coins : 



ua mau ke ea o ha aina i ha pono ; meaning 



(is continued) the life of the land by 

 righteousness. The affirmation seems to 

 be made in the first word, ua, although this 

 is sometimes a supernumerary word, or at 

 least an auxiliary one. 



Position of Nouns. — A peculiarity about 

 nouns is that they may stand in almost any 

 part of the sentence except at the beginning. 

 The whole method of affirmation is unique. 

 It may be done by several parts of speech. 

 Here is an example where a noun contains 

 the idea : 



I ha po ha lahou hana ; meaning 

 In the night was their work. 



In the following case there is no verb in 

 the sentence, and the pronoun contains the 

 declaration within itself : 



( Oia) ha mea i loaa i ha waiwai ; meaning 

 (That is) the thing to obtain wealth. 



Some phrases are difficult to understand. 

 This was once found in good Hawaiian : 



mahou hoi, o na elemakule hane, a me na ele- 

 inahtile wahine ; 



which literally means : 



We, also, the old men males and the old men 

 females. 



Just what is implied therein has baffled 

 more than one Hawaiian scholar. The 

 idea may be akin to that contained in the 

 Spanish phrase Voy a dar un abrazo a mis 

 padres, where the word padres is employed 

 when both father and mother are meant, 

 the meaning, of course, being that he is 

 going to embrace both of them. 



French and German Constructions. — -In cer- 

 tain constructions two negatives are neces- 

 sary just as they are in French. Nele 

 means to lack, and ole means not ; yet they 

 are both employed, and, taken together, 

 have the force of one negative only, as : 

 Nele na Kanaha o Honolulu i he humu ole. 



This ole in our idiom would be superfluous 

 but the Hawaiian requires it. The French 



