The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-09-14
Speech IN HAWAII.
Native Language is a Musical Tongue.

Alona with territory and few other
things at what has been called tne CROSS
roads of the Pacific, the United States
has annexed O new language and some.
what considerable literature owned by the
5000 people left as the rennano Oh 'neif
race, says the New York Sun. Inc ma
waiian is not difficult or Grabbed speecn'
1t is soft and musical, most OF the "hi'e
people in Hawaii speak it more or less
fully, and it offers no great difficulty to
the others who m y be expected TO I'LL up
the new domain.
Its most prominent characteristic is the
great use of vowels. Besides the five
vowels it needs only seven consonants to
make up the alphabet, and the one hard
and fast rule ofsthe grammar is that two
consonants shall never come together and
that no word or syllable shall end with
other than vowel On the other hand,
vowels may string along in indefinite suc-
cession. The speech abounds with whole
words which have not single consonant
to hold them together. Two vowels stand
side by side in a majority of words. The
opportunity to triplicate the vowel has
not been neglected; word has been
formed of every such combination. Thus
"aaa' means friendly, 'eee' is the verb
to rise up, ''iii' is little, 1000, means
to shrink, and "uuu" means to stammer.
Four yowels together form many words.
as ssaaua", orone or bag with wrinkles
under the eyes. Some few words consist
of as many as five vowels one after the
other, such as ''iiaao. :" which is the name
for poi when it is hard and musty, or
s.oiaio'' the word meaning true.
The language is highly developed in
grammar and rhetoric, developed by the
savage Ha waiians up to the limits of
their needs and containing the elements
of still further development The proof
of that may be found in the books which
have been translated into Hawaiian. The
Holy Scriptures in Hawaiian show this.
Despite the fact that the history and the
doctrine therein contained were absolutely
beyond the line of island experience. 1t
has been found possible to express them
perfectly in the native tongue with only
few words adapted from foreign sources;
in fact, there are fewer than one per cent
Of naturalized words in the Hawaiian.
1t has its widespread linguistic afnnl-
ties. The Polynesian tongue, of which 1t
is one member, is spoken over wide
extent of the Pacific, as far south as
New Zealand, as far east as lie P1ta to
Whenua, or Rapa. -nui, which Is better
known as the Raster Island of the colossal
carvings. When Cook traversed those
seas he carried Tahitian, who was
everywhere competent interpreter. Ons
language of the Polynesian stem is as like
another as are English, Dutch. Gander-
are stems which may be traced in the re-
motsness of Madagascar. At least one
great effort has been made TO prove the
PolynesiAns to be an ear ly ohshoos OF the
Aryan race and therefore blood brothers
to the Gerulanic stock
For long ages unwritten letters were
the gift of the American missionaries.
long poems held in faithful memory and
recfted In the full moonlight. They were
poems which Epreserved the memory of
adventurous voyages and the victories of
great warrior chiefs. The character of
the verse may be shown by this extract
from the "Mele," or song of the Chief
Kualii, composed long before the white
will find that the Hawaiian lines fulfill
all the requirements of prosody:
o, Kahiki. moku kai a loa,
Alma Olopana noho al.
Iloko ka mOku, / waho ka la;
Oke aloa1o ka la ak, monk, Ike hlki
mai.
Ane ia ike oel
ia Ike.
Ia ike hoi au ia Kahiki,
He moku leo pahaoah vale Kahiik.
No Kahiki kanaka pi luna
A ka iwi kuamoo ka lani;
A luna keehi tho,
Mana tho ia lalo,
Aole o Kahikf kanaka;
Hookahi Kahiki kanaka-he haole;
Me Ia la he Akua
Me au la he kanaka
He kanaka no,
Pal kau: q Ike lie kanaka hookahi 9 nix.
Kahiki is not the only parent arohipel
ago of Tahiti, from which the name Is
drawn; it is any foreign land. The great
mystery of this poem is that it describes
the white man long before he came to
Hawaii. The TRANSLATION is BADLY literal
and attempts to carry some of the swing,
if not quite the rhythm of the Original:
Kahiki's land in the wide-spreading
ocean,
The great Olopana's abode which he
dwelt In;
Within is the island, outside it the sun
whirls,
But dim is the sun and the land when
you make it,
Perchance thou hast seen 1T
I have seen.
Ills true that my eyes have indeed seen
Kahiki.