Polynesian Languages

POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES, a general term for one branch of the great Oceanic family of speech, the other branches being Melanesian, Micronesian and Indonesian. These four divisions are so clearly marked off from each other and so definitely spring from one common parent that it is customary to refer to the individual languages of each group as mere dialects. The existing differences between the languages as we know them, however, are such as to justify the use of the term languages.

The principal members of the Polynesian group are (a) Samoan (probably the oldest form of Polynesian speech extant), (b) Maori, (c) Tahitian, (d) Hawaiian, (e) Tongan, (f) Man garevan, (g) Nukuhivan (of the Marquesas Islands) and (h) the dialects of the Paumotu archipelago. From these main tongues dialects and sub-dialects have developed until Polynesia has almost a hundred variants of the original tongue.

Phonetics.

The Polynesian languages are amazingly rich in vowels with striking consonantal poverty. Although possessing only the five vowels a, e, o, u, in a short and long form the musical register of the Polynesian voice is so wide as to produce the illusion of numberless variants of these vowels. The i in par ticular is occasionally so shrill that no European can satisfactorily reproduce it.

The consonants are k, t, p, s, (h), 1, (v), n, m, f, (v), (w). No single Polynesian tongue contains all these consonants, those in parentheses being alternatives in some languages for the letter immediately preceding. Fakaafo is one of the richest of these tongues having k, t, p, s, n, m; most of the others lack two or three of this number. Maori has, in addition. a compound or aspirated consonant wh which sounds very like an aspirated v, as in whaka-, the prefix of causative verbs. A tabular view of the phonetics of the chief Polynesian languages follows.

Thus, e, i, and o are constant ; a and u variable. But so jealously are vowel-values guarded by Polynesian speakers that these changes are constant within the bounds set by any par ticular language and it is possible for the speaker of one idiom to say definitely what form a word will take in another whose phonetic system he knows.

Variability is much more frequent among the consonants than with the vowels, which are the backbone of Polynesian speech. k is constant except in Hawaiian, Samoan and Tahiti speech where it is replaced by a glottal check; t is constant except in Hawaiian where it becomes k, e.g., Maori taliata, a man, Hawaiian kanaka, Nukuhiva kenata, enata. P, n and m do not change at all and 1 and r appear alternately. The Samoan and Fakaafo s for h in the other languages, betrays the sibilant sound of h before a weak vowel (an analogy is found in Luchuan and Japanese hito, Tito, pronounced shto). All the changes illustrated in the table are regular and very few exceptions are found.

Morphology.

Syllables in Polynesian tongues may begin with a consonant or a vowel but must always end in a vowel. From this it results that many vowels come together in words of several syllables ; extreme cases are hooiaioia, mou'a, kaui keaouli. Here, however, each successive vowel is a syllable, there being no true diphthongs in these languages. There is no vowel elision, and the accent (penultimate), is very light, so that each syllable is clearly enunciated. But owing to the Polynesian dis taste for consonants many homophones are created, mostly con sisting of two vowels, e.g., Nukuhivan ua means "rain," "two," "to heat," "lobster," etc., from elision, the original words being uka or usa, rua, ura, and uka. The genius of the language can be clearly seen from the borrowings from foreign languages, chiefly from English, e.g., the word "quarter" appears as tuata, "governor" as tavana or kavana, "doctor" as ttote, etc.

In normal words, when compounds are made the accent shifts so as to fall still on the penultimate syllable, e.g., Samoan, cive to give, avenia to be given ; Hawaiian, lobe to hear, lohea to he heard. But there are exceptions to the rule of penultimate accent, which must be learnt by practice only; most of these, which are not numerous, arise from the difficulty of distinguishing between homophones or from the need of distinguishing a corn mon word from one which has become tapir as the name of a chief or other prominent person.