The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-19
LANGUAGE OF THE FIAWAIIANs
It IS Pleasing to the Ear. But Lacks
 Force and Expression


 u IS Pleasing to the Ear. But Lacks
 Force and Expression.
 t Polynesia, which comprises number of distinct archipelagoes upon which are dependent several smaller groups, IS inhabited by a brown skinned people, With dark or black, smooth, curly hair who are shown by their mythology, traditions, customs, and language to be- long to one and the same race, to which ethnologists and philologists of recent years have applied the distinctive name of Mahori. A line drawn from New Zealand through Samoa northeast to Hawaii, all inclusive, very nearly de- lines their western limits. They are in exclusive possession of the whole of the water area to the right of this line as far as to Easter Island, and left of 1t are nowhere now found in an unmixed state, except in the Ellice and Union groups, and at a few scattered points in the New Hebrides, and in the south- east and perhaps northeast coast of New Guinea. They are thus shut off by the intervening Papuans from the In- dian archipelago, of which, in ancient times, they appear to have been the au- tocthones, and whence they emigrated eastward at a very early period and ar- rived first at Savaii, the largest island of the Samoan archipelago. Their furth- CT migrations from archipelago to arr chipelago can be traced with some cer- tafnty through tho, uniform traditions of the various groups. In these tradi- tinnS SQUlii ic ctor f1xy %o under names that, in form, well illus trate the perturbation of letters in the closely connected Mahbri languages; Savaiki the original Mahori form of the word; Savaii, the Samoan form; Ha- vail, the Tahitian; Hawailsi, the Ma ori; Havaiki, the Marquesan and Ha- waii, the Sandwich form, which became the name of the chief island of that group. It is not implied that each peo- pie came directly from Savaiki, but only that the several migrations took place at times when the name of it's primeval home was still fresh in the memory of all, or at least survived In some mythological form.
 The language of the Hahoris belongs to primitive unmixed form of speech, but one degree removed from the iso- lating or lowest stage (typified in Chi nese), and occupying a cort of interme- diate position between it and the true agglutinating tongues typified by the Finno-T -Tartaric family.
 The peculiarities of this geat linguis- tic family are limited phonetic sys- tenn; great predominance of vowels over consonants; almost total absence of infection; wonderful homogeneity; imperfect differentiation of the various parts of speech; and the curius practice of ''tabooing'' words, such as those forming parts of a chiefs name, either during his lifetime or after his death. The Hawaiian language of the Sand- wich Islands (which were originally peopled from Tahiti, soon after it's set clement by the Samoans) has become much changed and enfeebled in It's pho- netios Nancy Hopkins, former Ha- waiian consul-general, says of it that 1t lis so soft as rather to be compared to the warbling of birds than to the speech of suffering mortals."
 Every syllable, and consequently eve- " word, ends in a vowel, and no two consonants can come together without
 
 waiian can pronounce correctly word that ends in consonant; his voice slides irresistibly into vowel sound. Thus, in pronouncing Boston or London he will say Bcsttona and Lonedona. Hence as syllables often begin and al- ways end with a vowel, it Is obvious that there must be a perpetual concur renee of sounds which renders the pro- nunciation of words difficult to acquire, although each sound is extremely sim- pie in itself. The ratio of vowel to con- sonant sounds is nearly twice as great aa in Italian.
 In reducing the language to writing, the American missionaries employed twelve letters, namely five vowels, a, @, i, and u, having the invariable sound that they possess in Spanish; and seven consonants, h, k, l, m, D and W. These suffice to represent all the sounds in the language; but in order to give proper expression to names of persons, places and things of other countries with which the Hawaiians need to become acquainted and especially to scripture names, the following nine consonants were added to the alphabet: b, d, f, g, | of words the full accent usually falls upon the penult and there is a secon- dary accent upon the syllable preced- ing the ante-penult.
 AS in all other languages of the same family, there is a deficienty in general terms and in words to express abstract ideas. At the same time, the language abounds in nice distinctions and pos sesses copious vocabulary. It has no verb substantive nor any verbs to ex- press existence, possession CT duty. There are no variations in nouns for case, number or person; but the moods and lenses of verbs are pretty clearly distinguished by simple prefixes and sufflxes.
 Upon the whole. says Sir George Simpson, the Hawaiian language may