OF LANGUAGES. 



65 



The Bisaya dialect does not exhibit any verbs 95 which 

 correspond to the abstract sense of the English " to go," " to 

 open," " to gather," and " to buy," but it produces in their 

 stead 33, 27, 42, and 13 special terms, all expressing a parti- 

 cular going, opening, gathering or buying* The Tagala idiom 

 expresses " to go " in 75 different ways, and has 17 represen- 

 tatives of the verb " to carry." 96 The Hawaian dispenses with 

 a general term for " to send, " but indemnifies itself by a number 

 of verbs, expressing each a peculiar mode of sending. 97 In the 

 Tagala language food is boiled in eleven, while it is eaten in 

 the Bisaya dialect in forty different ways. 98 Like the Burmese, 

 so the American Cherokee 99 delights in manifold modes of wash- 

 ing, while the Mohican and the Burmese descant on the varie- 

 ties of cutting. 100 Languages so different as Hawaian 97 and the 

 Dravidian dialects 101 are at a loss how to express the verb " to 

 break. ' ' Dr. Schoolcraft lays special emphasis on the fact that : 



(95) See Crawfurd, 1. c, page cxx and ccxxxiv. " In the Bisaya language 

 I can find no words for the verbs ' to buy ' or ' to sell ' generally, yet for the 

 first of these there are thirteen verbs, as to buy for sale, to buy wholesale, to. 

 buy in retail, to buy corn, to buy gold by barter, to buy in partnership, to 

 buy slaves, to buy earthenware, to buy bells, and such like." 



(96) See Crawfurd, 1. c, page cxx. 



(97) See Ellis, page 464 : "Verbs not only express the action, but the manner 

 of it distinctly ; hence to send a message would be orero, to send a messenger 

 kono, to send a parcel houna, to break a stick haki, to break a string moku, to 

 break a cup naha, to break a law hooma loka, &c." 



(98) See Crawfurd, 1. c, page cxx. The Bisaya has among its 40 words for 

 the verb " to eat " the following : — To eat generally kaun or hungit, to eat 

 with an appetite bakayau and makumaku, to eat a little havat, to eat greedily 

 dicum, to eat all samang, to eat by morsels kuibkuib, to eat in the morning 

 aga, to eat at noon udtu, to eat in order to drink sumsum, to eat by sipping 

 pangus, to eat with another salu, to eat raw things hilap and kilau, to eat 

 fruit lagulum, to eat fish or flesh lonlon, to eat the flesh of the hog pahit and 

 urur, to eat the flesh of the dog luang, to eat the flesh of snakes lamiii, to eat 

 locusts unas, to eat the flesh of fowls bubur, to eat carrion katut and guiluk. 



(99) See Schoolcraft, Vol. II, page 34. 



(100) Compare the Burmese to cut a gash sha-the, to cut in slices hnyeng-the, 

 to cut down (as timber) lai-the, to cut wood khok-the, to cut fuel hten-pouk- 

 the> to cut off hpyat-the, to cut with a knife hlee-the, to cut with scissors hny- 

 at-the, &c, &c. 



(101) A general term for " to break " does not exist in Telugu, e.g., to break 

 a glass is pagalcuta, to break a bone or wood virmuta, to break a rope tencufa^ 

 to break a soft substance truneuta, &c. 



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