A 
166 LINGUISTICS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. 
anesian, and in Sa‘a it was done by a periphrasis, the knowledge one 
has in oneself. But possibly the most difficult thing to translate into 
Melanesian is the Lord’s Prayer. The very first phrase, “Our Father,” 
presents considerable difficulty, and in the Mota rendering the word 
“our”? has been omitted altogether, and the word Mama (vocative) is 
used by itself. Dr. Codrington defended Mama as the correct voca- 
tive for both numbers, but nevertheless tamamam our father, father of 
us, does actually occur elsewhere (Isaiah 63, 16) as a vocative. The 
Melanesian is not accustomed to addressing or even to thinking of any 
person as father in a corporate relation to a number of people (beyond 
the more immediate family relationships) ; to his mind fatherhood is a 
personal and individual thing; nor again is he accustomed to think of 
the spiritual beings whom he worships as the fathers and protectors of 
their worshippers. Even in English the phrase “Our Father’ occurs 
rarely as a vocative except in the biblical use or rarely in a poetic sense. 
Kingdom and will are both dificult words to find renderings for. A 
Melanesian knows nothing of a king, but chiefs occur everywhere 
and in Sa‘a a word alahanga was adopted from alaha chief. For will 
the usual rendering is by a word equivalent to heart (breast) or by a 
periphrasis, what the heart is fixed on. A word for debt is common 
enough everywhere. In southern Melanesia there was a regular prac- 
tice of money-lending or usury. Forgive is generally rendered by the 
equivalent for think away, sae ‘asi in Sa‘a, nom vitag in Mota. 
Mr. Copland King has published a pamphlet entitled “‘ Theological 
terms in native languages,’ which deals with this whole question in the 
sphere of the Pacific. 
In an old catechism in the Mota language, printed by the Mission in 
the very early days, several things of interest occur, and light is thrown 
thereby on the development and evolution of the method of transla- 
tion now in use. Jhe catechism uses two English words for which 
native equivalents have since been found: papataiso for baptism, now 
rendered in Mota vasug rongo holy washing; glori for glory, now ren- 
dered lengas radiance. Evidently no equivalent for kingdom had as yet 
been found; in the Lord’s Prayer, in the first instance where the word 
occurs, ““Thy kingdom come,” the Mota renders it by a periphrasis, 
“Cause men to become Thy people’’; in the second by the equivalent 
for “Thine are all things.” 
Also, curiously enough, in the Lord’s Prayer there is a rendering of 
the opening word Our, taman kamam, 1. ¢., Father-our, where the later 
books have only Mama Father; the relative pronoun “‘which” has been 
rendered iniko Thou, whereas the later books in Mota do not attempt 
to translate it, but have simply Mama avunana, O Father in heaven. 
In the Apostles’ Creed the word now used as equivalent to believe, 
nomtup, had not come into use at the time of this catechism (nomtup = 
bring thought to a point, cease to have doubt, believe), nom to think 
