Tuomson.— Whence of the Maori. lii 
But in this branch of the enquiry we have more to do with the mode of 
creating the sounds and articulations. This is, for the most part, effected by 
a slightly opened mouth, by the breath, the tongue, and the lips. As the 
vowels are expressed by the simply opened mouth, they have no other designa- 
tion ; but it is otherwise with the consonants, In the languages under review 
consonants are divided into labial, sibilant, palatal, dental, aspirate, and 
compound articulations, viz., dento-labial and dento-palatal, and also, in a 
small degree, palato-nasal. Neither the intonations of the Chinese, the deep 
gutturals of the Hindustanee, the rolling vibrations of the Tamil, nor the 
harsh sibilants of the Arab have existence, N ow, it may be surmised that 
this principle prevails with primitive tribes as it does with single beings in 
their infancy—that the more primitive or infantile they are the fewer will 
` be their articulations, the less their known wants, the less elaborate their 
modes of expression. Thus, in the manner that water finds its own level, the 
first outpourings travelling furthest, so we find in tribes and languages that a 
parallel exists. I have already stated some cases of this in my former paper, 
and I need only here allude to the furthest travelled of the Polynesian tribes, 
viz., the Sandwich Islanders, who have only six consonants in their alphabet. 
The particular tribes that we now have to do with, have, as regards the 
Maori, only eight consonants, and as regards the Tongan, only twelve. In 
observing children of any nation commencing to articulate, it will have been 
noticed by most of you that labials are first mastered, as in pa and ma; 
probably next aspirates, and then dentals, then others according to the chapter 
of happy accidents that make nature's operations so varied and interesting. 
Thus, in the word *ship," one child may fall on a dental for the first 
consonant and another on an aspirate ; or for the word “ food," one may choose 
a labial, another a palatal Hence we see a clue to the great variety of 
articulation of the same word fossilized or preserved in different and distant 
tribes who have parted in past ages. As an example of this principle І may 
mention the case of a country-born lady in India, who had never left her 
native country, telling us that “she was dirty, but her husband was dirty 
more,” meaning that “she was thirty, but her husband was more than thirty.” 
In thus speaking she merely used the articulation and idiom of her native 
country. So much seems necessary, by way of preface, before we commence 
at New Zealand, and institute a phonetic comparison between the Maori and 
Tongan ; but before doing so I must also remark on the common transmutation 
of vowels—many cases may be quoted in our English tongue— but confining 
our examples to the languages under review, I may state that the Malay of 
Menangkabau terminates his words with o, while the Malay of Malacca, does 
so with a, as sayo, saya. Again, in other dialects, i is transmuted into e, and 
a into и, yet the words so altered may be from one root, 
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