But the Phonology was modified in Polynesia, and
thus shows an aboriginal influence

(13) There was one element of the Polynesian dialects that, though probably modified in Indonesia, was still more modified in the Pacific Islands. This was the phonology, the range of sounds that the language included. The grammar it brought could not well be made simpler, and hence remained as it was brought, in spite of the new peoples that had to adopt it. But we see from Malay and Malagasy that it had in Indonesia a much larger scope in sounds. Both these languages have fifty per cent more letters to use in forming its words. Polynesian must have rejected this surplusage when it had to adapt itself to the speech organs of the conquered in the Pacific. The result is one of the simplest, most primitive phonologies on the face of the earth. Not that all the islands have the same. Every group has rejected one or two sounds that some of the others have retained, a clear proof that there were different peoples in them, with organs of speech long moulded under different climatic conditions. The vowels are all retained and are less subject to change, though in individual words they are often substituted the one for the other. They are but few, and all the dialects have rejected diphthongs, some of which Malay has retained. But the consonants, few as they are, differ greatly when the same word appears in different dialects. The dialects page 88of the islands that are nearer the equator have liberally rejected the guttural k, and that this was not solely or directly due to climate is shown by the fact that the Moriori dialect of the Chatham Islands does the same, a fact that seems to show that the Polynesian ancestors of the Morioris came from islands nearer the equator than those of the North Island Maoris. The difficult initial ng is also rejected by most of those dialects and by that of the South Island of New Zealand, the former preferring instead of it n, the latter k.

(14) It is generally the household or domestic pronunciation that determines the direction of change in sounds; the women of the conquered are taken in as wives or servants, and mould the speech of the children in their early or plastic stage, and their climatic environment is their most faithful ally in this. The new vocabulary of a language that is a compromise is moulded by the men on the battlefield and in the marketplace; its phonology and its grammar are moulded on the hearth. Now, in Maori there are only fifteen sounds, the five vowels, three liquids, m, n, r (in Polynesian 1); one guttural, k; one dental, t; and one labial, p; three breathings, h, w, and wh; and a nasal initial, ng. This is one of the simplest of phonologies; it is evidently one that has abandoned all the half-tones and variations, all the difficult sounds that may have been introduced by the more advanced culture of any conquering immigrants. If one of the ethnological strata in the Polynesians was Aryan, as the grammar seems to indicate, then the triple variety of the sonants (k, g, gh; p, b, ph; t, d, th) that belongs to most Aryan tongues has disappeared, and a set of three, one for each of the main points of contact of the organs of speech (namely, k, p, t) has taken their place. Doubtless, the aboriginals found the distinction brought by the immigrants between hard, soft, and aspirate in each order of sonant beyond their powers of page 89discrimination by ear and hence beyond their powers of speech.