Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/234

 204 FIJI AND THE FIJIANS. The pronominal system of the language is full of interest. The circumstance that its demonstratives and interrogatives are few and simple, is one which has its parallel in many tongues. Nor is it very surprising that it dispenses with the use of a specific form for the rela- tive. The personal and possessive pronouns, in Fijian, however, are a linguistic raree-show. Most languages are content to use their pro- nouns of these classes in two numbers. The Fijian is not satisfied with fewer than four ; for it adds a dual and a triad to the ordinary singular and plural forms. Thus the " our " of the English may be represented now by a nodaru, now by a nodatou, now by a noda, according as it refers to two persons, or to three, or to many. The triad number is also employed when a few are intended. The use of inclusive and ex- clusive forms of the first personal and possessive pronoun has been al- ready named as a feature of llalayo-Polynesian language in general. This distinction in Fijian is carried through the dual, triad, and plural numbers alike, so that, for example, there are as many as six separate words in the language answering to the one English " we." In addition to these characters, which the language shares with the Tongan and some other Oceanic tongues, Fijian has the further peculiarity — and in this perhaps it is unique — that it varies the form of the possessives ac- cording as the nouns with which they are connected are names of eat- ables, drinkables, or things of neither of these classes. Let the English- man who wishes to say, " My house, my cheese, and my cider," be re- quired by the laws of his language to use a separate form of the " my " in each of these three combinations, because cider is something to be drunk, cheese something to be eaten, and house neither the one nor the other ; he will express himself with the nicety on which the Fijian in- sists in this respect. The correspondence between the numerals of the language and those of even the most distant members of the Malayo-Polynesian family of tongues is truly surprising. Dua, rua, iolu, va, lima, ono, vitu, walu, cizua, and tint, the Fijian cardinals from one to ten, are forms to which the Malayan, the Hawaiian, the ^laori, the Malagasse, and all their fel- lows present striking resemblances ; nor are they wanting in a family likeness, which connects them with languages belonging to others of the great groups into which the universal speech of mankind may be dis- tributed. Ordinals are made in Fijian by prefixing ka to the cardinals. Like the Latin bini, trini, etc., it has also distributives, which it forms from the cardinals by putting before them ya or tauya ; thus yalima or tauyalima is " five a-piece," " five each," and so on. Besides these the language contains a distinct series of numerals which have a collective