4 SISSANO. 
mar and dictionary of the language with which it deals as may equip 
the stranger to speak it.’ In the scholastic idiom the words vocab- 
ulary and dictionary connote generally a physical difference in size, 
a third degree of space being introduced with the term lexicon. In 
this connotation the best of the Melanesian dictionaries occupies 
no more space than is required of a vocabulary, nor is there any such 
breadth of treatment of the individual vocables as would serve to 
raise the work into dictionary dignity. 
In this class we find so-called dictionaries of the Fijian (a speech 
at least half Polynesian), of Efaté, of Mota, of Aneityum, all of south- 
ern Melanesia. Then after a long interval we find a dictionary of 
the Pala, of the Tami, of the Bongu in the German possession of New 
Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. The extent of these vocabu- 
laries is a function of the condition out of which they arise, the need 
which is recognized by the white man of superior culture to commu- 
nicate with the inferior black in terms of such speech as is or as may 
be made comprehensible to him. 
To satisfy this need the white man resident in Melanesia subjects 
the Melanesian to an alien speech, or else he devotes his attention to 
the acquisition of some acquaintance with the Melanesian speech with 
whose speakers he has elected to cast his lot. So far as this relates 
to the Melanesian the controlling circumstance lies in the attitude of 
the white man. If the newcomer regards the Melanesian as sheaves 
to be garnered, the result is the painful acquisition of Melanesian 
speech and ultimately a system of grammar and a dictionary; if, on 
the other hand, he regards the Melanesian as the garnerer of sheaves 
in an industrial as opposed to a pietistic sense, there results the jargon, 
the now familiar Beach-la-Mar. Commerce, industry, plantation life 
employ the jargon as a lingua franca for readiness of communication 
in a complex of mutually incomprehensible tongues; missionary 
endeavor sets before itself the task of codifying so much of the speech 
in which it engages its efforts as may serve to make a means of estab- 
lishing the sacred text on a plane of communicability, and in addition 
so much more of the vernacular as may serve the ends of exposition 
and the no less important end of securing the welfare of the missionary. 
This somewhat rigid adhesion to the ideas which inhere in the Bible 
and to the words necessary to communicate them have had a tendency 
to limit the extent of the printed vocabularies of Melanesia. Fairly rep- 
resentative of the vocabulary of this type is the dictionary of Mota, 
with about 5,000 entries, the learned authors having been at pains 
to explain that it does not purport to be exhaustive. In the northern 
area of Melanesia we are pleased to observe that the German mis- 
sionaries have compiled vocabularies more instinct with the genius 
of the speech and less narrowly confined to their specific, and what 
may fairly be described as professional, needs. 
