Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/310

252 Thus much for the manners and customs of these people, as far as they have come to my knowledge in the few opportunities I had of seeing them. They differ in many things, but agree in more, with those of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. Their language I shall next give a short specimen of; it is almost precisely the same, at least fundamentally. It is true that they have generally added several letters to the words as used by the inhabitants of Otahite, etc., but the original plainly appears in the composition. The language of the northern and southern parts differs chiefly in this, that the one has added more letters than the other; the original words are, however, not less visible to the most superficial observer. I shall give a short table of each compared with the Otahite, taking care to mention as many words as possible as are either of a doubtful or different origin; premising, however, two things—first, that the words were so much disguised by their manner of pronouncing them that I found it very difficult to understand them until I had written them down; secondly, that Tupia, from the very first, understood and conversed with them with great facility.

I must remark that most of the southern language was not taken down by myself, and I am inclined to believe that the person who did it for me made use of more letters in spelling the words than were absolutely necessary. The genius of the language, especially in the southern parts, is to add some particle—the or a—before a noun as we do; the was generally ke or ko. They also often add to the end of any word, especially if it is in answer to a question, the word oeia, which signifies yes, really, or certainly. This sometimes led our gentlemen into the most long-winded words, one of which I shall mention as an example. In the Bay of Islands a very remarkable island was called by the natives Motu aro; some of our gentlemen asked the name of this from one of the natives, who answered, I suppose, as usual Komotu aro; the gentleman not hearing well the word, repeated his question, on which the Indian repeated his answer, adding oeia to the end of the name, which made it