1V PREFACE. 
The true Sa‘a speech is spoken in its purity at two villages only, 
Sa‘a itself and A‘ulu. But the differences between Sa‘a and Qaloto 
(Pwaloto), the language of the majority of the inhabitants of Little 
Malaita, 4,000 or 5,000 in number, are so slight, amounting largely to 
variety in accent and intonation, that Sa‘a may be said to be the prin- 
cipal language of Little Malaita. 
The language of the north end of Little Malaita is called Tolo, and 
this is also the language of the south end of Big Malaita. On the north 
end of Big Malaita the language is known as Lau. ‘These three lan- 
guages, Sa‘a, Tolo, and Lau are closely akin, and with Ulawa they form 
a distinct subgroup in the linguistics of the Solomon Islands. Sa‘a and 
Ulawa on their part have distinct likenesses with the languages of San 
Cristoval, and Lau at the other end of Malaita has several features 
which show a grammatical connection with the language of Florida. 
An important feature in both Sa‘a and Ulawa is the use of shortened 
forms of the personal pronouns in the three persons singular and of 
additional forms in the third person plural, and the sufhxing of these 
as objects to verbs and prepositions. ‘This is the practice of Solomon 
Island languages generally. The presence of the third personal pos- 
sessive has not hitherto been recognized in the languages of San Cristo- 
val, but doubtless it exists, although not so commonly in use as in 
Sa‘a and Ulawa. Certain examples seem to show its presence in the 
language of Florida (though Dr. Codrington has not marked it in his 
grammar of Florida); anggu and ana certainly occur, cf. ganagana oli 
anggu remembering me, ganagana oli ana remembering him. If these 
are compared with Sa‘a ‘amas: to‘o aku feeling pity for me and ‘amasi 
to‘o ana feeling pity for him, it will be seen that the so-called suffix in 
Florida is anggu, ana, and not nggu and na, cf. “ Melanesian Languages,” 
page 524, nouns. 
This is the first essay toward the dictionary of any Solomon Island 
language. The compiler is fully aware of the scantiness of his work. 
Probably not more than one-third and certainly not one-half of the 
existing words have been collected by him. ‘The languages are rich 
and, with proper opportunity, many additions might easily be made to 
the words herein set forth. 
Of the linguistic importance of the Melanesian languages there can be 
no possible doubt. Dr. Codrington in his book ““The Melanesian 
Languages” has shown how certain features in a language so far 
removed geographically from Melanesia as Malagasy can be explained 
by referring to Melanesian habits of speech, and also how Melanesia is 
in many ways the linguistic key to the proper explanation of Polyne- 
sian. Mr. A. S. Atkinson, in a paper read in 1886 before the Nelson 
(New Zealand) Philosophical Society, said with reference to Dr. Cod- 
rington’s “Melanesian Languages”’ that “this work will mark an epoch 
in Polynesian philology by showing the fundamental relation between 
