422 SIDNEY H. RAY. 
would be the conclusive answer. Let us see what other answer 
can be found. 
In this research we begin with the rulers of all language, the 
sounds, or the characters rather by which those sounds are’ set 
forth. And here it may be remarked that all through this dis- 
cussion the Hawaiian Grammar of Andrews and Hale’s work on 
the Polynesian tongue will be our authority." 
§ 2. Sounps. 
The Hawaiian Grammar gives us the characters representing 
the pure sounds of the language when first reduced to writing, 
and as further distinguished from characters afterwards intro- 
duced to represent newer sounds brought in by a wider contact 
with the civilized world. There are twelve of these characters in 
all, seven for consonants and five for vowels. Those for the vowel 
sounds are the common European a, ¢, i, 0, u; those for the con- 
sonants are the English A, &, 1, m, n, p, w. The vowels are almost 
uniform in their sounds, Mr. Hale remarking “the changes that 
do take place are occasioned not by different shades of sounds in 
the vowels themselves, but by the influences of the consonants.” 
Of the Ponape sounds and characters it may be said that the 
vowels are far from possessing such uniformity. There are the 
usual five long vowels, then as may short, then of the vowel 0 
there are three additional sounds, of a one, of ¢ one. The con 
sonants, however, possess much the same sounds as exist in 
Hawaiian, thus: ng, .j, k, 1, m, n, p, 17, t. 
Tabulated the two systems stand thus :— 
ONSONANTS. sp cero 
Hawaii. Ponape. a 
rade : a a (long), & X (short, a (asu in nut) 
ity ] rb e | é (long), é ei e (as in there) 
,n. | m, n, ng. i 1 (long), 1 (sh ort) 
Guttural k. ° ra) (Iong), : lag tlgte o (in or), o (im 
Aspirate h. g | A ghee 
Sibilant. | j z wong —- 
: : Os el 
I have added where necessary, a few notes from more recent works. 
