114: USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



particles to the noun, which become united enclitically to it, as " tata-ho," 

 my father: •' tata-mo," thy father; "tata-na," his father; "tata-ta," our 

 fatlier (including the person addressed); 'tatan-mame" (excluding the 

 person addressed), etc. To this division belongs the Chamorro lan- 

 guage of Guam. 



One feature of the Chamorro language, which has led to much con- 

 fusion in the various vocabularies of that language appearing in the 

 reports of .scientific expeditions, is the modification of tonic vowels of 

 nouns and adjectives when immediately following the definite article. 

 Thus "a" (like "'a" in father) becomes "a"' (very much like "a" in 

 hat), "o" becomes "'e." and "u" becomes "i." Wehave "lahe," 

 man, but "i lahe," the man; guma, house, but "i gima," the house; 

 "loka na guma," high house, but "i leka na guma," or "i gima na 

 loka," the high house. It also possesses the characteristic, common to 

 the group to which it belongs, of uniting an attributive adjective to 

 its noun by means of a ligature ("'na") as shown in the preceding 

 example." The plural of a few nouns is formed b}' reduplication of the 

 tonic S3'llable, the plural of all adjectives and a certain class of nouns 

 is formed by prefixing the particle "man" to the word; as "mauleg 

 i liihe," good is the man; ''manmauleg i liilahe," good are the men; 

 "aniti," ghost, "mananiti," ghosts." The plural of most nouns, 

 however, is indicated by placing after them the word "siha." which 

 is the plural of the third personal pronoun, as "'guma siha" houses. 



For a more complete account of the Chamorro language of Guam 

 the reader is referred to a series of papers by the author in the Amer- 

 ican Anthropologist, new series, volumes 5, 6, and 7, 1903-5. 



In the two following tables a number of Guam words are compared 

 with corresponding words in the Polynesian, Philippine, and Malaysian 

 languages. In the column of Philippine names "T." indicates the 

 Tagalog language; " V.," the Visayan; "I.," the Ilocano, and "P.," 

 the Pampago. In the column of Polynesian names "S." stands for 

 Samoa, " H." for Hawaii, and "N. Z." for New Zealand. The words 

 given in these tables are selected from among a great number which 

 do not show such close correspondence. It would be misleading to 

 give the impression that the Chamorro language bears a very close 

 resemblance to the Polynesian dialects or that it ma}' be considered 

 a Philippine dialect. Certain words, it is true, are closely allied to 

 both the Polynesian and Philippine names for the same thing, but on 

 the other hand there are words much more nearly like the primitive 

 Malayan than either the Philippine or Polj-nesian forms, and in no 

 one language of the Philippine Archipelago is there a close corre- 

 spondence either in the vocabulary or in the verbal forms with those 

 of the Chamorro. 



n This feature will be seen in many Philippine plant names. The ligation is in 

 some cases shortened to an /; or ng added to the noun; as chotdan lago (foreign 

 banana), and kamoting kahoi (tree aweet-pot="fa^^ ca.osava nlant. 



