POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
249 
Bible will, at no very distant period, be circulated among 
the people. Whether or not any of the Apocryphal 
books will ever assume a Polynesian dress, it is impos¬ 
sible to say, but at present it is improbable. 
The dialects spoken by the tribes inhabiting the 
different groups in the South Sea, being strictly analo¬ 
gous to each other, it was hoped that the Tahitian trans¬ 
lation of the Scriptures would have answered for the 
whole; there is, however, reason to fear that distinct 
translations will be necessary, not only for the Sandwich 
Islands, the Marquesas, and Tongatabu, but also for the 
Harvey Islands, which are not more than 600 or 700 
miles distant from the Society Isles. So strong a re¬ 
semblance, however, exists between the dialects, that the 
Tahitian translation will require only slight variations, 
the idioms and structure of the language being, in all 
their distinguishing features, the same. 
When the uncultivated nature of the language, into 
which the Scriptures have been translated, is considered, 
connected with the remembrance that it is only by the 
labours of the Missionaries that it has been within the last 
few years reduced to a system, and employed in a written 
form, it cannot be expected that these books, more than 
any other first translations, should be altogether faultless. 
The knowledge of the Missionaries themselves in the 
language, notwithstanding thirty years’ attention to it, is 
constantly increasing; and, compared with future trans¬ 
lations which their successors or well-educated,natives 
may make, the present will perhaps appear imperfect. 
Nevertheless, from the qualifications of the translators, 
their unquestionable integrity, and united patient 
attention to the preparation of every work, I believe the 
only imperfections that may be found, will refer to 
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