APPENDIX. 461 
striking resemblance in others, and a great part of the lan¬ 
guage was doubtless derived from the same source. 
Since my return to England, I have had an opportunity 
of conversing with the Madagasse youth now in this 
country for the purposes of education, and from them, as 
well as a vocabulary which I have seen, I was surprised 
to learn, that in several points the aboriginal languages of 
Madagascar and the South Sea Islands are strikingly ana¬ 
logous, if not identical, though the islands are about 10,000 
geographical miles distant from each other. 
With the aboriginal languages of South America we 
have had no opportunity of comparing it; some of the 
words of that country, in their simplicity of construction 
and vowel terminations, as Peru, Quito, (pronounced kito,) 
Parana, Oronoko, &c. appear like Polynesian words. 
In the Sandwich Islands, as well as the Tahitian lan¬ 
guage, there are a number of words that appear true 
Hebrew roots, and in the conjugation of the verbs there is 
a striking similarity; the causative active and the causative 
passive being formed by a prefix and suffix to the verb. 
In many respects it is unique, and in some defective, 
but not in that degree which might be expected from the 
limited knowledge of the people. The simple construction 
of the words, the predominancy of vowels, and the uniform 
terminations, are its great peculiarities. The syllables are 
in general composed of two letters, and never more than 
three. There are no sibilants in the language, nor any 
double consonants. Every word and syllable terminates 
with a vowel; and the natives cannot pronounce two con¬ 
sonants without an intervening vowel; nor a word ter¬ 
minating with a consonant, without either dropping the 
final letter, or adding a vowel; hence they pronounce 
Britain, Beritani , boat, boti; while there are many words, 
and even sentences, without a consonant, as e i ai oe ia ia 
ae e ao *a, literally, £ speak now to him by the side that he 
learn/ The frequent use of the k renders their speech 
more masculine than that of the Tahitians, in which the t 
predominates. 
The sound of their language is peculiarly soft and har-« 
monious; great attention is also paid to euphony, on 
account of which the article is often varied ; the same is 
the case in the Tahitian, in which the word tavovovovd 
signifies the rolling of thunder. 
Each of the dialects appears adapted for poetry, and 
none more so than the Hawaiian, in which the l frequently 
