158 LINGUISTICS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. 
However, since the Melanesian language in the neighboring island of 
Nifilole shows no sign of Polynesian influence at work, and since the 
tendency always is for the later and the more decayed types of speech 
to affect adversely the older and more complicated types, it can hardly 
be expected that the Polynesian languages in Melanesia shall have 
been affected by the Polynesian. 
Certain Papuan languages in New Guinea show very distinct signs 
of such across. Thus, Mr. Ray writes of Maisin (Cambridge Expedi- 
tion to Torres Straits, vol. 111) that it appears to be a Papuan language 
which has adopted an abnormal number of Melanesian words. “It 
has also adopted some Melanesian particles, the verbal auxiliaries 
entirely, and the use of possessives with post-positions; but in other 
respects its grammar is Papuan.” ‘The language of Mailu on the south 
coast is in the same mixed condition as regards its vocabulary. Maisin 
may represent a survival of a former Papuan population in Eastern 
Papua. 
Micronesia has six groups of islands, Carolines, Ebon-Marshall, 
Gilberts, Nauru, Palau, Tobi, and with the single exception of the 
Carolines each group has only one language. Mr. Ray states that in 
the Carolines there are at least five distinct languages, Ponape, Kusaie, 
Mortlock and Ruk, Yap, and Uluthi. In certain parts of Micronesia 
a jargon called Chamorro is spoken, presumably a mixture of Spanish 
and Micronesian. 
While reckoning the approximate number of Polynesian languages 
as 19 and of Micronesian as 15, Mr. Ray says that Melanesia has 180 
and New Guinea (Papua) certainly 150, with many others still un- 
named. He states also that in many of the Papuan or non-Melane- 
sian languages of New Guinea “the extraordinary difficulty of the 
grammar and the limited area in which the language is spoken make it 
extremely impossible that any one will ever take the trouble to learn 
one.” As an example of a difficult language Mr. Ray quotes the 
Kiwai of the Fly River, the grammar of which he says is “‘awful,” 
thus, ¢. g., supposing that three people share a coconut between them 
and one of them says “‘we three are eating a coconut,” nimo-ibi nao o1 
n-oruso-1bi-duru-mo; the literal translation of this is “‘we three one 
coconut we-eat-three-now-we.” If a man eats three coconuts he says 
mo netowa naobi o1 potoro n-triso-1bi, 1. €., ““I two one coconut three I- 
eat-three.” 
As to the New Guinea languages, it is enough for our present pur- 
pose to state that they seem to be of two types, viz. Melanesian and 
Papuan, 7. ¢.,non-Melanesian. The Anglican Mission in New Guinea 
has to deal with both types of these languages. ‘The language used at 
Wedau, the headquarters of the Mission, is of the usual Melanesian 
type, and Mr. Copland King, the original investigator of Wedauan, 
has also published a translation of the Gospel according to St. Luke in 
