It was only in recent times that a little light was shed onto the involved linguistic relationships of the archipelago. The Wesleyan missionary Dr G. Brown was the first to study the language of the Duke of York Islands, and his Dictionary and Grammar of the Duke of York Islands (Sydney 1883) published in only a small number of autotyped copies, provided the first information on one of the languages of the archipelago. This was followed a number of years later by the far more detailed and more extensive work of the Wesleyan missionary R. Rickard, published as an autotype in 1889 under the title, A Dictionary of the New Britain Dialect and English, and of English and New Britain, also a Grammar. Both works showed the intimate connection of the two languages, and the Wesleyan mission soon found that in southern New Ireland the language was so closely related to both these languages, that the north-eastern Gazelle Peninsula language could be used without difficulty in their schools. Meanwhile the Catholic missionaries, whose settlements on the Gazelle Peninsula had spread extraordinarily rapidly over a large part of the Gazelle Peninsula since 1890, under the leadership of the extremely capable and hard-working Bishop L. Couppé, had also undertaken a study of languages, and in 1897 there appeared in volume 2 of the third annual edition of the Zeitschrift für afrikanische und ozeanische Sprachen, an extensive grammar of the language of the north-eastern Gazelle Peninsula by Father B. Bley, which he followed up in 1900 with a language dictionary, published in Münster by the mission press. I would also like to mention that in this work, for some unknown reason, the chapter on adverbs, that Father Bley had covered in detail, has been significantly curtailed. Both works complement and expand the earlier publication by missionary Rickard. Then, in 1903, the autotype publication of a grammar of the Baining language by Father M. Rascher appeared, in which is given a further valuable contribution to the study of the languages of the archipelago. An updated edition of this valuable work followed in 1904, in the Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin, annual volume VII, section I.

For the following information I am grateful to fathers B. Bley and M. Rascher who, in spite of the great workload resting on them, very kindly obliged me by preparing a short summary of their earlier investigations. From this a presentation of the languages of the Gazelle Peninsula is given in a rounded form, with the addition of studies on the related southern languages of the Sulka and the Nakanai, and the language of the Duke of York group in the north.

Although the darkness previously hanging over the interrelationship of the Bismarck Archipelago languages is, through these studies, beginning to lift, there is still infinitely more in this area to be investigated and defined, but the eager enthusiasm directed at this situation by the missions’ guarantees that this area of research will not be neglected.

1. The Languages of the Coastal Dwellers of the Northern Gazelle Peninsula

An homogeneous language exists among the coastal natives along virtually the entire northern coast of the Gazelle Peninsula, from Cape Birara to Massawa, including the island of Massikonápuka. Although these coastal dwellers are undoubtedly of common origin, and, according to currently accepted opinion, have crossed from the southern end of New Ireland to the north coast of the Gazelle Peninsula as plundering tribes; pushing the original inhabitants – the Butam, Taulil and Baining – into the interior, or occupying the coastal strips that the latter had forsaken on account of volcanic eruptions, these coastal dwellers still feel little affinity towards one another. More often, hostilities have reigned between most districts and villages on the coast since time immemorial, and fear of being attacked and captured, or of being eaten, hinders any approach between them. This favours maintenance of purity and further development of the various dialects that were probably brought in with immigration from New Ireland, 312and which all represent only different idioms of the language family held in common with the inhabitants of southern New Ireland. For these coastal dwellers, related by origin, traditions and customs, there is no common tribal name that we can assign to their language, in the way we speak of the Taulil language, or the Nakanai, Baining or Sulka languages, but they must be known simply as the languages of the coastal inhabitants of the northern Gazelle Peninsula.

According to a rough estimation by the former imperial magistrate, Dr Schnee, the total number of natives, heavily decimated by war and epidemics, who speak these languages today is only 20,000, or at most 30,000.

The greatest majority of these speak the melodious so-called Matupi or north coastal dialect, whose boundary actually begins about the middle of Blanche Bay near the villages of Dawaun and Kararoia, and extends along the coast to include Matupi Island, then stretches along the entire north coast from the village of Nonga to the middle of Weberhafen. From Weberhafen this dialect moves inland on the Gazelle Peninsula, extending over the entire area south of the Varzinberg, incorporating the districts of Napapar, Tombaul and Tamaneiriki.

On the coast of Blanche Bay, from Schulze Point to Kabakaul and inland as far as the Varzinberg, the so-called Blanche Bay dialect is spoken. This differs from the previous dialect both in the pure and harder consonants, b, d, g, compared with the gentler sounding mb, nd, and ng, of the former, and through several not-exactly beautiful-sounding variations in word form. Apart from the more uneven pronunciation, which sounds as though the people had blocked their noses while having their mouths half-open, a simple comparison of several words (Table 1) shows which part has the greater euphony.

We meet a further dialect in the villages at the foot of Mother and North Daughter; in Bai, Nodup, Korere and Tavui, towards Cape Stephens. This has the hard b, d, and g in common with the Blanche Bay dialect, but differs from it and the other dialects in many word forms, and sounds very broad, while adding an i to many word forms; for example, see Table 2.

This dialect prevails also on the north coast of the island of Uatom; moreover it is pronounced in almost a singing tone, and the hard terminal p changes mostly into a v. For example:

Finally, from the middle of Weberhafen in the districts of Ramandu, Massawa, and on the island of Massikonápuka, we have the so-called Baining shore dialect, or s–dialect. It has the latter name because, as well as having deviating word forms it differs from the other dialects particularly in the frequently occurring s-sound, again demonstrating a great affinity with the language of southern New Ireland.

A few examples:

On the boundaries of both dialects, at Cape Livuan and on the island of Urar, both the north coastal and Baining shore dialects are spoken.

Seventeen letters suffice for writing the language: a, b, d, e, g, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, t, u, v (= w), to which the letter s must be added, because of the Baining dialect and essential foreign borrowings.

313The sounds c, h, f, z, x and ch are foreign to this language. The s, c, z and tz in foreign words and also sch, are, as in the Baining shore dialect, pronounced as t by the natives; thus ‘Jesus’, ‘Moses’, ‘sacrament’ become Jetut, Motet, and takrament. In the Baining shore dialect the s- sound is not pure, but is strongly mixed with the h- sound.

F and pf in foreign words become p in the mouth of the natives (for example, Jotep instead of Joseph); and ch becomes k (for example, Achab to Akap).

The sounds b, d, and g at Matupi and on the north coast are always mb, nd, and ng, and whereas q in the Blanche Bay dialect designates the pure hard g, it is only a more intensive ng in the north coast dialect – almost nk.

Among the vowels, a is by far the dominant one, and is almost as common as all the others put together. But although a certain monotony is created, the other vowels are fortunately distributed in such a way that the speech in general – assuming naturally that it is well pronounced – must be regarded as melodious, and one might with some justification be astonished that such a primitive people can possess such a fine language.

One becomes even more astonished in studying the grammar, both by its richness in form and by the clever manner in which missing forms are circumvented or substituted.

This language shares with all the Melanesian languages the article a for all genders, for the definite article ‘the’ and also the indefinite ‘a’ (while ta indicates ‘any’). Also, the personal article to in front of men’s names and ia in front of women’s names, is a common occurrence in the Melanesian languages, in similar form.

A surprise is the triple genitive form of the substantive, formed by the particles kai, na, and i; the first expressing actual ownership, the second determination or subject, the third belonging to the whole or family property.

Examples:

The dative is formed by the prepositions, ta, in, an; and the accusative, apart from the mostly euphonically essential form of the article, ra, is the same as the nominative.

The triple form of multiples: dual, triple and plural, provides no difficulty in the substantive, because they are formed simply by prefixing the numerals two and three and the plural particles a lavur and a umana (the former being the absolute plural: all of their kind; the latter the relative plural: representing several in speech).

The situation is more difficult with the pronoun, in which the inclusive and exclusive form must be differentiated in the dual, triple and plural, depending on whether the people spoken to are incorporated or not. An outline might illustrate this more easily.

We have an abundance of forms here, far exceeding that of European languages, but also establishing a brevity and precision of expression that is scarcely possible in another language. Equally numerous are the forms of the reflexive pronoun:

iau mule, I myself,

dor mule, we two ourselves,

datal mule, we three ourselves,

and so on, and of the possessive pronoun. In the latter, in all numbers and persons, besides the objective and substantive forms, a special form for determination or personal use is differentiated from possession. Here too we provide a plan, for the sake of clarity and brevity:

The forms in brackets are the variations of the substantive form from the adjectival; where no 314special form is given, both are the same. For illustration of possession-indicating and determinationindicating pronouns, several illustrations follow:

They say: kaiqu pal, my house, but aqu nian, the food meant for me; komave boroi, our pig (possession), but amave boroi, pork meant for us; kou paip, your pipe (possession), but amu tapeka, tobacco for you, destined for your use; kana rumu, his spear (possession), but ana rumu, spear destined for him, by which he might be killed; kana market, his weapon, but ana bol, the bullet meant for him.

It is interesting, and in accordance with most Melanesian and several Micronesian (Gilbert Island) and Papuan languages, that in designations of relationship, body parts and several prepositions, the possessive pronoun is added as a suffix. For example:

The relative pronoun is replaced sometimes by the personal pronoun, sometimes by the indicating nam or ni, sometimes by the particle ba.

The indefinite pronouns di and da for ‘one’ are probably abbreviations of the personal diat, ‘she’ and dat, ‘we’, while the indefinite ‘it’ is reproduced by the personal pronoun third person singular i; for example, i bata, ‘it is raining’.

The adjective can stand either before or after the substantive, and in the former case is connected to it by na, and in the latter by a, and takes the substantive form.

Examples:

An actual gradation of the adjective does not occur, but there is a substitution for it, sometimes by juxtaposition, such as: qo i boina, nam i kaina, ‘this is good, that is bad’ (that is, this is better than that); or in the form: i boina ta dir, ‘he is the good one of the two’ (that is, the better); or: i gala taun diat par, ‘he is big above them all’ (that is, the biggest), or in similar circumlocutions.

Numerals, as almost throughout the South Seas, are based on the five or ten system. ‘Five’, a ilima, comes from lima, the hand. From 5 onwards the basic numerals are repeated with the prefix lap or lav, and from 10 on they are put together:

2000, a tutan ot; that is, a whole man, or so many times 100 as there are fingers and toes on an intact man (assuming that the latter still has all his limbs, which is quite often not the case).

The scheme shows how impractically long these numbers are (for example, 948 = a lavuvat na marmar ma ra ivat na vinvinun ma ra lavutul), and how little they are suited to rapid usage in trade and commerce. In actual fact, the natives need few dealings with numbers in their life. Where they have not been educated in schools and taught to count, they have so little numerical skill that in counting up to 5 or 10 they have to use the fingers of one or both hands to help them to form and retain a number picture. The larger numbers: tens, hundreds and thousands, are used only when counting strings of shell money, which occasionally run into the hundreds and thousands. This is carried out extraordinarily slowly and carefully, with fingers and toes used as aids.

Wherever in life more rapid counting is required, unique counting methods are available. For eggs, a brood of young birds, pigs or dogs, the native uses a keva instead of ivat for 4, a ura keva for 8, and a utul a keva for 12; similarly for 5, a vinar instead of ilima, for 10 a ura vinar, for 15 a utul a vinar, for 20 a ivat na vinavinar, and so on.

For fruits that are bound into bundles, he calls a bundle of 4 a varivi, 8 a ura varivi, and so on; a bundle of 6 a kurene; 12 aura kurene, or a naquvan, a dozen; 120 a pakaruot. 315

He counts smaller shell money after nireit – that is, every six shells; he names larger ones after that part of the body up to which they reach.

Every eight slender strips of bamboo used for making fish baskets are called a kilak, and accordingly sixteen are a ura kilak, twenty-four a utul a kilak, and so on.

By doubling the cardinal numbers, the distributive numbers are obtained, such as tikatikai, each one; a evaevut, every two; a ututul, every three; a ivaivat, every four; a ililima, every five; a laplaptikai, every six, and so on.

By placing the causative particle va in front of the cardinal numbers, the ordinal numbers are formed; for example, a vaevut, the second –that is, ‘that which makes it become two’; a vautul, ‘that which makes it become three’ – that is, the third; a vaivat, a vailima, and so on.

The substitution of numeric adverbs is characteristic. Since there are actually almost no real numeric adverbs, so-called numerating adverbs are formed by prefixing the causative va, in the sense of, ‘to do something once’, ‘to do it twice’, and so on; for example, i vautul me means ‘he has tripled it’ – that is, he has done it three times. I vailima me, ‘he has quintupled it’, and so on.

The natives lack all understanding of precise fractions and thus lack precise names.

With verbs, as well as the transitive and intransitive there is often a third form as well, in which the object, when it is a third person singular personal pronoun, is already included, and thus does not need to be specifically expressed. For example, oro (intransitive) to call, ora to call him or it; virit to fish, virite to fish for him or it; qire to see, qure- to see him or it.

Another feature of the verbs that is a characteristic of most South Sea languages consists of doubling them. They are either partially or completely doubled, be it to indicate the intensity of treatment or of frequent occurrence, or to make transitive intransitive.

Time and mode of the verb are not expressed by verb alteration but by particles, and often do not coincide with those of European languages, as the following scheme shows.

Through the particle vala, a so-called habitual form is obtained. For example:

In a similar way, through tiga a daily form is obtained: iau tiga na vartovo = I come every day for lessons.

In all its forms the imperative coincides with the future: una vana! go! avat a vana! go (plural)!, and so on.

Unfortunately, a real conditional is lacking, as well as the entire passive voice. In the former, one is aided by the particle ba in front of the indicative form, and in the latter by circumlocution with the active; for example, instead of ‘I am hit’, one says, dia kita iau, they hit me or, i kita iau, he hits me, or similar.

The above scheme has already shown how the conjugation particles form complete replacements for our auxiliary verbs, ‘to be’, ‘to have’, ‘to become’, ‘may’, and so on, in so far as these serve for the construction of time and manner. For ‘to be’, when it designates the relation of the predicate to the subject, a corresponding personal pronoun serves each time. For example:

316In spite of the apparent lack, in reality this language deviates so little that it almost never lacks a substitute form.

Still with the verb, besides the causative prefix va mentioned above, which signifies ‘to allow’ or ‘to make’ what the action of the verb does, we want to mention the prefix var in the formation of the reciprocal, occurring in similar form in a whole series of Melanesian, Polynesian and Papuan languages.

Examples:

Of the remaining word forms, adverbs of place deserve special mention, as much for their individuality as on account of their frequent use. In them, rest and motion must be precisely differentiated, as well as direction to the speaker, whether on the shore or forest edge (or conversely on the open sea), whether straight over the person addressed, whether over yonder, up above or down below is intended. Thus:

The adverbs of place often replace prepositions, such as:

They are usually also used where the indication of place has been done using a substantive with a preposition or in some other way. For example, arama raul a davai, ‘on the tree’; abara piram, ‘near you’.

As far as the real prepositions are concerned, their small numbers can be explained as due both to their replacement by adverbs, and the significance and manner of construction of many verbs that require no preposition. Thus, here too, the lack is only ostensible.

In the numerous interjections for the expression of astonishment and wonder, like aipua! ua! gaki!; of pain, like vele!; of compassion, like rabiavui!; of joy over the new moon or the presence of a lot of fish in the basket, like kuo! kuo! kuo! and other sentiments, this language can indeed measure up against others.

On the other hand, it is very modest in sentence construction. In simple sentences, the sentence parts can indeed be partially inverted and placed at the head for emphasis, but for longer sentence structures, or for coordinating or subordinating composition of sentences, both precise particles and the actual conditional form of the verb are missing.

If we compare the vocabulary of this language with that of European languages we must be amazed on the one hand by its great wealth and on the other hand by its great poverty. This language is uncommonly rich in names and designations for objects and processes, and in technical expressions from the daily life of the natives. Every plant, every forest tree, each one of over a hundred varieties of banana, each one of the numerous species of taro and creeper, every bird, every type of fish, every minute part of their huts, their canoes, their fishing baskets, has a special name. Every technique in house construction, fishing, and so on, has a short, precise technical expression that, because of its absence in our languages, we can reproduce only by a circumlocution of varying length. Often words coincide in a certain sense with European ones, but the slightest nuance, another situation, another object, requires yet another totally different verb.

On the other hand, the dearth of expressions from the area of the abstract, of spiritual life, morals, and above all from everything that passes beyond the horizon of notions in the natives’ daily lives, is very great. Above all, many general concepts, such as ‘plants’, ‘animal’, ‘human’, ‘person’, are missing. Others indeed exist, but do not correspond generally with ours, as, for example, bird, a beo, which also encompasses everything that flies, like beetles and butterflies. Mental powers and activities like comprehension, thought, volition, belief, are idiomatically never expressed in the abstract by the substantive, but always concretely by verbs: matoto, to understand; nuk-vake, to remember; meige, to desire; nurnur, to believe. However, in this area the language is still capable of modification, and permits – for example, by doubling the verbs – many new word constructions for abstract concepts. However, it will be necessary for the young people to become accustomed to the use of the abstract. The same applies to the area of morality.

It is obvious that the natives can have no expression for totally unknown or only unclearly felt ideas, such as gratitude, chastity, humility, modesty, and so on, but, here too, many a new word can be formed grammatically correctly, corresponding to 317the meaning of the word in European languages, while transposing it from the concrete into the figurative sense. But where this is not possible, one ought not to shy away from enriching and complementing such a beautiful language by introducing the simplest possible foreign words. One would fervently hope that in our German colonies German words would be introduced for missing words, rather than English, which has unfortunately occurred too often up till now.

For comparison with other South Sea languages, a list of a few common words follow, and as an example of speech, a translation of the Lord’s Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer

Tamamavet nam u ki arama ra balanabakut. Boina da ru ra iagim. Boina na vut kou varkurai. Boina di torom tam ara ra pia, veder di torom tam arama ra balanabakut.

Qori una tabari avet ma ra amave nian na bugbug par. Una nukue komave magamagana kaina ta nidiat, dia ter vakaine avet. Qaliak u beni avet ta ra varlam. Ma una valauni avet ka ra kaina. Amen.

2. The Duke of York Language

Lying between New Britain and New Ireland, the Duke of York group forms a natural connection between these two islands. One therefore easily tends to believe that the earlier migrations from south-western New Ireland to New Britain, especially in view of the imperfect vessels, all followed their natural route through the Duke of York group, and 318that therefore this island group was again a starting point for the various migratory expeditions, and that the language there was virtually the mother of the various northern Gazelle Peninsula dialects, which had gradually evolved and branched from it. Only a more intensive study of the Duke of York language seems to demonstrate that this can hardly be the case.

In any analogy, such a number of basically different elements are brought to light, mainly in the word forms and less so in the grammatical constructions, that one has to accept a completely independent development of the Duke of York dialect. On the other hand, as far as grammatical construction is concerned, the main similarity is with that of the northern Gazelle language, and the rules of the latter can almost all be applied to the former, with little alteration. Thus, without doubt, the Duke of York language belongs to the same idiom as the various dialects of the north-eastern Gazelle Peninsula and the south-western coast of New Ireland.

Moreover, in the Duke of York group, from island to island and occasionally from village to village, variants exist, based more or less on neighbouring dialects. Thus in Nakukur, woman = a tebuan (according to G. Brown’s dictionary), while on the island of Mioko and on the northern Gazelle Peninsula it is a vavina; whereas on Nakukur the latter word signifies only the female of animal species. ‘Long’, iok, iokana on Nakukur, is tia, tiaina on Mioko. Likewise, divai ‘tree’ and make ‘sun’ are nai and kake on the latter island. A great many words are originally different from those of the northern Gazelle language, such as those in Table 3.

A very large number of totally similar words with the same meaning as those of the northern Gazelle Peninsula demonstrate the original relatedness of both dialects; see, for example, Table 4.

With other words the similarity is immediately apparent. For example, see Table 5.

In many words of course the relationship does not leap so easily to the eyes, and it is only discovered when one goes back to the root of the words; for example, make (‘sun’, ‘heat’) is called keake on the northern Gazelle. The root of them both is ke; in the latter case it is doubled to keake, and in the former case it is changed into the perfect participle by the prefix ma, and is found in similar forms in the Baining s-dialect in maqes (‘sun’), or as the adjective in maqe, and makeke, ‘dry’. It is the same with ninogon and nagnagonai, ‘laughter’; akaka and kaina, ‘bad’; veum and varubu (root um = ub), ‘to fight’; teglik and taiqu (root ta), ‘brother’; tunalik and matuana, ‘nephew’; vekankan and varqanai, ‘to agree’, ‘to be happy’, and others.

This dialect has the broad ai in several words like tai (sea) in common with the dialects of Nodup and Tavui at the foot of Mother volcano; likewise the word toto, instead of bebe (butterfly).

Several identical or similar words probably originally had the same meaning but gradually became shaded to more or less related concepts, such as:

The word par (all) here has the reversed form rap, just as diradira (flying squirrel) is reversed into ridarida in other places.

A brief overview of grammatical forms will show us on the one hand the great relationship of the northern Gazelle dialects with those of the Duke of York group, but, on the other hand also their differences, occurring particularly in the particles of construction.

To begin with, as on the Gazelle Peninsula, seventeen letters suffice for written representation of the language, and the letter ‘s’ has had to be added because of introduced foreign words.

The article a for all genders, and the personal article to is again common to both. Also, a special article is available for female personal names, but here it is called ne instead of ia or ja; for example, Neling becomes Jaling on the Gazelle Peninsula.

Exactly as on the Gazelle Peninsula, besides the singular, they differentiate a triple multiple-form, dual, triple and plural, and the triple genitive with na, i, and kai deviates only insofar as the posses-sive genitive has a nu instead of kai. The preposition tai for forming the dative on the Gazelle Peninsula corresponds with karom here, and has the same meaning. The dual is formed with ru and the triple with tul instead of ura and utul on the Gazelle Peninsula. Also, the plural has two forms, with in or kum, as in a in ruma or a kum ruma, ‘the houses’.

With regard to the adjective, in both its formation and its placement to the substantive and the designation of differences in gradation, there is no difference in treatment from that on the northern Gazelle Peninsula.

The personal pronoun is almost the same as on the Gazelle Peninsula. Table 6 indicates variations.

Also, the reflexive pronouns are formed, as there, by doubling the preceding form or adding ut (Gazelle Peninsula iat). 320

The possessive pronoun is likewise differentiated by a doubling: indicating possession and indicating assignment. The former is indicated in Table 7, the latter in Table 8.

The possessive pronoun is added also to several prepositions as a suffix:

Finally, it is added to certain substantives, but in a more extensive way than on the Gazelle Peninsula. As well as to those substantives indicating relationships, body parts or parts of a whole, like those in Table 9, the possessive pronoun can also be added as a suffix to a whole number of other words, such as those in Table 10, and:

The relative pronouns are, as on the Gazelle Peninsula, replaced by personal pronouns, or by pronouns indicating ownership, or can be left out completely.

The interrogative ooi? ‘who’? and aua? ‘what’? correspond to toia and uva on the Gazelle Peninsula.

However, the demonstratives, kumi, kuma, kumia, and bi, are different.

Variations here from the northern Gazelle language are a special kind of counting for pairs, where the first five numbers almost coincide with the cardinal numbers of the Gazelle Peninsula, but on the other hand they do not disown their pure Polynesian origin. Thus they are:

Most of the other varying forms of numbering for fruit, shell money, eggs, animals and humans are quite different from equivalent numbering methods on the Gazelle Peninsula; thus, here, a inagava is a 200-shell piece of money; there, on the other hand, it is four eggs or youths.

In the verbs, the transitive suffixes tai and pai correspond with tar and pa on the Gazelle Peninsula. The ending tau is perhaps the similarsounding preposition: ‘on’, ‘over’. The causative prefix va also exists here, and ve corresponds with the prefix var in forming the reciprocal.

With regard to the partial or total doubling of the verbs, the same rules apply as on the northern Gazelle Peninsula.

In conjugation the verb remains unaltered. In the present tense only the pronoun precedes the unaltered verb (see Table 11).

According to the Reverend G. Brown, the perfect should be expressed by inserting a long a between pronoun and verb. This seems erroneous to me; I rather believe that it is the particle ta, as in the Nodup dialect, where ta is also used instead of tar or ter on the Gazelle Peninsula. As it seems, the particle of the perfect is used less often here, and narrates mostly in the present, if the past already stems from the rest of what is said.

The imperative coincides with the forms of the future tense (see Table 12), and the conditional is like the indicative, and is differentiated only by the particles ba, ‘so that’, ‘if’; duk, ‘perhaps’; kaduk, ‘lest’.

The entire passive voice, with the exception of a few perfect participles, is missing and, as on the Gazelle Peninsula, is replaced by circumlocution with the active voice.

The small number of prepositions is based both in the significance that no preamble is required and in the use of adverbs which often take the place of prepositions. The most essential real prepositions are ko, kon ‘from’; karom, ‘to’, ‘at’; ma, ‘with’, ‘from’, ‘through’; na, ‘by’, ‘for’; ta, tan, ‘in’, ‘at’.

Of all types of word, adverbs deviate the most from those of the northern Gazelle Peninsula; only very few are totally the same, like na bug, ‘yesterday’; na taman, ‘outside’. Yet others are not totally dissimilar in form, and are perhaps originally from the same stem, although no longer with the same meaning, like:

The adverb nakono (on the shore) corresponds to the adverb with the same meaning on the island of Uatom: naono.

The following are totally different:

The conjunctions ma, bulug, kaduk, ba, correspond to the Gazelle Peninsula words: ma, ‘and’; bula, ‘also’; kan, ‘lest’; ba, ‘when’, ‘if’. Ku corresponds probably to the end-syllable ka, ‘only’. On the other hand, kuma, ‘because’, differs from taqo on the Gazelle Peninsula.

Since interjections often vary even from village to village, there are deviations from those on the Gazelle Peninsula, like au! instead of aipua; a peu! instead of ra biavi! and others of lesser significance for the comparison of both dialects.

In any event, this brief comparison shows that in spite of the great similarity of both languages, and the consequent original affinity, basically different elements are nevertheless present in the Duke of York language; searching for their origin would still be an interesting project in further language investigation.

3. The Baining Language

Just as the Baining is different from neighbouring tribes in his physiognomy, traditions and customs, he differs also in language. This deviates in many ways from the great Melanesian family of languages.

A general feature of Melanesian languages is the presence of a triple; the Baining language lacks this. It has merely three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Formation of the pronoun, which is so painfully precise in most Melanesian languages, is less advanced here. There are no inclusive and exclusive forms, and furthermore a proper possessive pronoun is missing for words that indicate relationships or body parts. The Baining language recognises no difference in possessive pronouns and does not append them to the substantive, but always places the possessive pronoun in front of the substantive.

A further, and probably the most significant feature of the Baining idiom consists, in my view, in that it is an inflected language. The word endings are altered to express the different numbers.

The vocabulary is totally divergent from that of the Melanesian languages known so far, right down to insignificant exceptions.

The grammatical outlines of the Baining language are as follows.

I. Phonetics

The Baining alphabet has 22 sounds:

Vowels and umlauts are the same as those in German.

Note in regard to the pronunciation of consonants:

II. Lexicology

The Baining language is founded on the following five basic rules:

1. The noun-substantives are divided into several groups distinguishable by suffixes.
2. All the other classes of words, with the exception of adverbs, prepositions, 323conjunctions, interjections, and sometimes verbs, when related attributively or predicatively to a noun, adopt the syllables corresponding to the noun, in all numbers.
3. The words (substantive, adjective and pronoun) of the first and second groups, designating creatures endowed with intellect, have an unique pronoun for the third person plural (ta, ti, tu).
4. All designations for creatures without intellect, in the plural, belonging to the first and second groups, and the singular and plural of words of the third group regardless of whether or not they concern rational beings, have just one pronoun (in the singular and plural), namely g̃a or g̃et (g̃eri).
5. Words of the first group have a special possessive pronoun in the singular and plural (a – a ra).

The words of the second and third groups have the same possessive pronoun for singular and plural, namely at.

1. The Article

a) The definite and indefinite article is a (ama) in singular and plural, for all cases; for example, a ika, ‘the bird’, plural a ik; a muga ‘the tree’, plural a mug̃.

b) The article is placed in front of nouns, adjectives, numerals, the possessive pronouns, ‘ours’, ‘yours’, ‘theirs’, and the three persons of the dual. For example:
   a nanki, the woman
   a mer g̃oa, I am well (‘well I’)
   a ratpes, we
   a ur a luan, our clothes
   a g̃en a luan, your clothes
   a ra a ruis, their children
   a un a chip, our two spears
   a oan a lat, your two gardens
   a ien a vrika, their two slingshots

c) A number of words, mostly those expressing a relationship or parts of the body, occur without articles, and only in conjunction with the possessive pronoun. For example:
   gu mam, ‘my father’;
   gu nan, ‘my mother’;
   goa ren, ‘my body’.

2. The Substantive

a) The Baining language has three numbers: singular, dual and plural.

b) No unique suffix in the plural form corresponds to the suffixes of the singular of the first and second groups.

c) Only one special form of the dual suffix (iem) supports the various suffixes of the first group.

d) Similarly, only one special form of the dual suffix (im) supports the various suffixes of the second group.

e) Also one of the dual as well as the plural supports the various suffixes of the second group.

324Annotations:

Observations on the three numbers:

A. Singular

Mam, ‘father’; nan, ‘mother’, and several others have no singular ending.

B. Dual

1. The dual in the first two groups is formed by appending the ending iem or im to the stem, depending on the ending of the substantive, to its stem. For example, a igelka ‘the boy’, stem: a igel, dual: a igeliem; a igelki, ‘the girl’, dual: a igelim.

2. Each of the various suffixes of the third group, with the exception of as, has its own dual ending, which is appended to the stem of the word:

C. Plural

a) In the words of the first and second group:
   Formation of the plural occurs by omitting the singular ending (suffix). For example:

b) In the words of the third group:
   Each of the six classes is aided by an unique plural suffix, as evident from the summary in Table 13.
   Examples: a larini, ‘the small garden’; a lariam, ‘two small gardens’; a larirag̃, ‘small gardens’.

Annotation:

The suffixes of the third group each have a specific meaning. For example:

Declension

a) Genitive

The subjective and objective genitive relationship is expressed by a corresponding possessive pronoun. For example:

Annotation:

The corresponding possessive pronoun varies in form according to the different groups of the substantive.

b) Dative

There is no unique dative particle. The dative is expressed by circumlocution as in pronouns and prepositions. For example:

3. The Adjective

The attributive adjective can stand before or after the substantive.

In both cases it has ama or a as a joining particle.

4. The Numeral

The numerals up to and including 5 are simple; the rest are compound.

Annotation:

Numbers above 10 are not customary.

5. The Pronoun

a) Personal

See Table 14.

b) Possessive

See Table 15.

c) Indicative

d) The interrogative

nemka? singular, first group, ‘who?’ nemiem? dual, first group; nemta? plural, first group

nemki? singular, second group ‘who?’ nebim? dual, second group; nemta? plural, second group

nemg̃et? plural, first, second and third groups, ‘who?’ in words designating non-rational beings.

Annotations:

1. nemka, used substantively, is always placed in front; for example, nemka cha rekmet nini? ‘Who did it?’ nemka, used adjectively in the sense: ‘what kind of..’ is always placed following; for example, a nanki nemki? ‘What kind of woman?’ a ik nemget? ‘What kind of bird?’

2. nemka also has all the derivative forms of the three groups.

a igacha? singular, ‘what?’ ‘what kind of? (first group)

a igichi? singular, ‘what?’ ‘what kind of? (second group)

a igiem? dual (first group)

a igim? dual (second group)

a igig̃et? plural for all three groups

Annotations:

a igacha, like nemka, can take all the derivatives of the three groups.

e) The indefinite

ta, ti, tu, ‘one’, actually ‘she’

sichik, tarak, ‘another’

bak, ‘anybody’

Annotation:

sichiak and tarak have definite suffixes for the second and third groups, as does the substantive.

6. The Verb

1. Various types of verb are differentiated in the Baining language:

2. The Baining verb, like the noun-substantive, has three numbers: a) singular, b) dual and c) plural, and each one has three persons.

3. Also, the Baining verb has three tenses: present, future and perfect.

4. In the present and future tenses, the actual stem of the verb does not undergo any alteration, except for many abbreviations.

5. In the perfect, the stem sometimes remains unchanged, and sometimes is abbreviated, or undergoes changes of sounds.

6. Temporal difference (future and perfect) is expressed by the particles i, ik, ip, for the future, and sa for the past.

Paradigms of the verb

a) Verb with preceding pronoun

b) Verb with subsequent pronoun

c) Verb formed from a substantive and a preposition

Present

7. The Preposition

Prepositions are:

8. The Adverb

1. Adverbs of time

2. Adverbs of place

3. Adverbs of manner

4. Adverbs of negation

5. Adverbs of affirmation

6. Adverbs of possibility

328

9. The Conjunction

10. Exclamation

Vocabulary

1. Substantive

2. Adjective

3. Verb

Examples of speech

The Lord’s Prayer

See Table 16.

Conversation

See Table 17.

The Spider and the Fly

See Table 18.

4. The Sulka Language

At first glance, on skimming briefly over a vocabulary, the Sulka language appears to have a great affinity with the Gazelle Peninsula language, since you find a multitude of totally similar-sounding words, like mat, kagal, matmat, momo, mi, kor, lul, mama, taktak, kaur, and so on. But when one compares the meanings of these words, not the slightest similarity remains, and one must wonder how such a large group of words, quite independent from those of the Gazelle Peninsula, have retained the same phonation. Comparing only, see Table 19. 329

To deduce a connection of the Sulka with the inhabitants of the northern Gazelle Peninsula based upon the similar sound of these and a whole quantity of other words would be just as wrong as trying to draw a conclusion on the connections of the Sulka with European peoples based upon the fortuitous presence of several pure Latin-sounding words like pater, panem, mea, vis, vim, vi, vas, mulier, inopia, and so on, or pure German-sounding words, like Speck, Speer, Tor, laut, tot, Lohn, Kot, Kuckuck, lang, leer, Saus, Lilie, and so on, in the Sulka language. Nevertheless, it would still be an interesting task for linguists to trace the steps in the gradual evolution of these South Sea languages, and to find out how, following natural universal rules of language, such a great number of identical- sounding words could be formed independently, and with different meaning by the Sulka folk, in whom, despite obvious differences from the Gazelle inhabitants, a certain similarity in physique and in traditions and customs cannot be denied. This task will be lightened as soon as the languages of the surrounding tribes from New Britain, southern New Ireland, and the northern Solomon Islands are examined in greater detail. It will then also be established whether the Sulka were the original inhabitants of New Britain or where they immigrated from.

I have been able to isolate only the few similar or identical words in Table 20 that have the same meaning as in the northern Gazelle language, from the already fairly complete word collection of Brother Hermann Müller (from the Catholic mission).

Therefore, even words that are similar elsewhere throughout the South Seas, such as tamana, ‘father’; matana, ‘eye’; limana, ‘hand’; taligana, ‘ear’; mat, ‘dead’, differ here.

Frequent liaison is very characteristic of the Sulka language – not, as in French, the liaising of the terminal consonants with the following word, but rather the coupling of the first of two initial consonants to the preceding word ending in a vowel. For example, see Table 21.331

On account of their many plosives – t, p, and the deep gutteral k, and the equally common aspirate h – the language sounds somewhat chopped up, but otherwise it is no less pleasing to the ear than that of the northern Gazelle Peninsula. 332

Another characteristic of the Sulka language are the silent vowels in normal speech; pronounced only in singing or slow speech, and indicated in writing by subscripting a small ‘o’ below the vowel in question; for example, koni (to sing) is pronounced kο̥ni. (See also Table 22, overleaf.)

The common article, definite and indefinite, is a, and the personal article, for men’s and women’s, and place and river, names, is e.

The Sulka language does not recognise a true genitive, but copes by using the possessive pronoun, as shown in the following examples:

The dative is formed in the singular and plural by means of makor ‘to him’: Ku en makor e Kakau, ‘I give it to Kakau’. Ku en makor a lo vlom ri, ‘I give it to the women there’.

The accusative is the same as the nominative: Kua vuokom a vul, ‘I see a mountain’. Ta klang e Nut, ‘he gives a gift to Nut’.

For multiples there are only two forms here to differentiate: dual and plural; the triple is lacking in the Sulka language. By placing the numeral lo, ‘two’ in front of the substantive, the dual is formed; for example, a ho, ‘the tree’, a lo ho, ‘the two trees’. Similarly the plural arises by placing kro or o in front, whereby the substantive assumes the plural form, mostly differentiated from the singular form. For example:

Only the adjective used in the predicate has the real adjectival form, whereas the adjective used in the attributive takes the substantive form, and the latter must agree with the substantive in number. For example:

The comparative – that is, actually the expression of dissimilar grades of attribute– appears as a juxtaposition, as in the language of the northern Gazelle Peninsula. For example:

E Piia ta hok, va e Tabak ta kun, ‘Piia is big and Tabak is small’ – that is, Piia is bigger than Tabak; or: E Piia a hogor, va e Tabak a gi kunur, ‘Piia is 333a big person and Tabak is a small person’; or: E Tauvam ta laut manang e Kaple, ‘Tauvan is big far from Kaple’ – that is, bigger than Kaple. E Got ta ia mang ur, ‘God is better than us.’

The personal pronoun varies depending on whether it belongs as subject of a sentence or stands alone (Table 23).

Murua, attached to the lone-standing form, gives the reflexive pronoun: duk murua, ‘I myself’, in murua, ‘you yourself’, en murua, and so on. The possessive pronouns

In front of substantives indicating relationship, the possessive pronoun has varying forms (Table 24).

In address one says, tita! or tito! or titou! ‘my father!’

Likewise:

In address one says, ina! or ino! ‘or inou! ‘my mother!’

The demonstrative

The interrogative

The relative pronoun is alternatively replaced by the demonstrative, as in:

The impersonal pronoun ‘it’ is formed by ta (third person singular).

Ta keirik, ‘it is raining’. Ta sluk, ‘it is dark’. Ta vurmik, ‘there is lightning’. Ta kulang, ‘it is thundering’. Ka vurgim a kolkha, ‘much sun for it’; that is, it is very hot.

Numbers, for the Sulka, are also based on the five-system; a gi̥tiek, ‘the hand’, means ‘five’ and a lo gi̥tiek, ‘the two hands’, 10. Yet their use of numbers barely reaches 20. In counting they repeat, incorporating the four fingers of the hand in sequence: tang ta, tang ta, tang ta, tang ta, and the thumb is called a gi̥tiek ta. Then for 6, 7, 8, 9 tanga ta is repeated four times once more, and for 10 a lo gi̥tiek. But besides this, they also have definite designations for each individual number:

As the outline shows the numbers are even more incomplete and clumsier than those on the coast of the Gazelle Peninsula, and therefore more unsuitable for commerce and trade, which can be explained by the low requirement for use of numbers in the daily life of the Sulka.

As on the north coast of the Gazelle Peninsula, here too we find transitive, intransitive and objective verbs, although the latter have no special form but every transitive verb, used without an object, already incorporates the object ‘him, it’. Here, as there, several unconnected verbs can be placed side by side, as in:

Doubling of the verb here means only multiples of treatments without otherwise altering the character of the verb.

The very convenient causative prefix is missing here; on the other hand, a prefix mo is available for forming the reciprocal:

A plural form of certain verbs is characteristic, as in:

Formation of time and manner occurs not through alteration of the verb, but by different particles and altered forms of the pronoun, as the outline will demonstrate.

It is noteworthy that the Sulka distinguish only two time periods, the present and the future. For the past, they use the present, but in speech the former must be made recognisable by some means.

Conjugation

Imperative

Habitual form

Conditional form

Optative form

Negation

Present

Future

Habitual form

Conditional form

Optative form I

Optative form II

Negation in the imperative

There is no interrogative form; a question can only be recognised from the tone of the affirmative form or from interrogative words.

The infinitive is very common, with ‘to’ represented by kam. Ta mnur kam eitiek, ‘he knows how to write’. K’lo pat kam kie, ‘I do not know how to write’. Ta ngoi kam eiha, ‘he is going to work’.

The Sulka language is rich in prepositions, except that their meaning and use does not correspond with that of other languages, making it impossible to translate them universally. In each individual case we must use yet again another preposition, and vice versa. For example, in the sentence: ta l’gam eakam e Veigi (that is, ‘he makes it after Veigi), the preposition eakam means ‘after’. But in the sentence: ngu ta ktiegim a lut eakam o reak (‘we are weeding the garden for the taro’), eakam means ‘for’. Finally, in the sentence: o usiel nga ta girap eakam o hi (that is, ‘vines are climbing up on the trees’ or ‘against the trees’), it can mean ‘on’ or ‘against’.

A similar situation occurs with other prepositions, like kim ‘by’, ‘at’, ‘to’, ‘on account of’, ‘over’; ma ‘about’, ‘with’ ‘in’, and so on.

The conjunction is not much more frequently used than on the coast of the Gazelle Peninsula, except that here they have the contradictory ‘or’, ee or oe. 335

On the other hand, there is again a great abundance of interjections, and there are repeatedly shuddering or bleatingly uttered, long-drawn-out vowels, that we designate by a ~ over them.

The Lord’s Prayer in the Sulka language

Ngur tit, in do ia vle kua ma volkha. Mur kam teiver ila munik. Ila kambung en kam pis. Mur kam titing eakam in mo ku mie, en’gar nga ma titing eakam in kua ma volkha.

A kolkha tieti klang ur orom ngo lol. Kikiangoi mang’ur ko, ngu ta lgam nong le iar, eng’ur ngo ma kikiangoi man gar, nga ta lgam nong le iar ngang ur. Nge or ia nglum mur ma mamas, va halger mur makor a tongman nong a iar. Amen.

Supplement

Side-by-side comparison of Sulka, O Mengen and Tů muip words

The O Mengen and the Tu̥ muip are friendly neighbouring tribes of the Sulka. Their languages show similarities only here and there with the Sulka language. But the O Mengen language too has many assonances with the language of the northern Gazelle Peninsula.

It will certainly interest the reader if we append to the above outline of the Sulka grammar a short compilation of Sulka, O Mengen and Tůmuip words (Table 25, overleaf) from the very industrious mission brother Hermann Müller’s collection, which has already offered a valuable glimpse into the word forms and several grammatical constructions of both the latter languages.

5. The Nakanai Language

The Nakanai people do not appear to be closely related either to the inhabitants of the northern coast of the Gazelle Peninsula nor to those of the interior, the Baining. Rather, almost everything: physique, traditions and customs, communal life in the villages, and so on, points to a relationship with the Papuans of New Guinea. Comparison between the languages of the Nakanai and the northern Gazelle inhabitants also shows this difference. I cannot say how far the relationship with the Papuan languages extends; it is significantly different to the language of the northern Gazelle Peninsula.

Surprising first of all in the Nakanai language is the strong accentuation and stressing of certain syllables that, in the pleasant form of most words, adds to the melodious sound, if they are not too drawn-out, as happens from time to time. In words like sodāni (one plants it); tinge usināni (up to that time); natuna tasamōni (only son); sonando (around); tauluvēni (pretty); paliliina (sick); nosiāna (to prohibit); tausināte (lay it there); suntāno (to kneel); sinōpe (broom) and others, one might almost imagine that one is hearing one of the melodious Romance languages. On the other hand, with the juxtaposition of vowels, like sa’o, ‘jug’; so’ēli, ‘to bury’; sā’e, to climb up; pō’o, ‘beginning’, ‘origin’; u’ūna, ‘his finger’; vi’i, ‘fat’; hu’u, ‘to call’; a’ásu, ‘to match’; no’ōse, ‘jealous’; pa’ālis, ‘thief’, ‘to steal’, and others, one could assume relationship with the Samoan language. One may add to this the aversion to the ‘r’, indeed the almost total absence of it, as in Samoan. Where the Nakanai language has words that contain an ‘r’ in the language of the Gazelle Peninsula, either the ‘r’ is totally absent, or it changes into an ‘l’, as in Table 26.

This sound occurs so often that this language has been called the ‘L-language’. Perhaps this can be traced back to the transformation of the ‘r’ into ‘l’. The ‘r’ is peculiar only to very few words, like tamatūtur, ‘sleepy’; giri, ‘hungry’; but my informant from the northern Gazelle Peninsula, whom I thank for these notes, also gave several of these, occasionally in the form with ‘l’ instead of ‘r’, like kalakēla, instead of geragēra with the same meaning: ‘to be happy’.

The numeral group from 1 to 10 also shows great similarity with Samoan, as the outline below will demonstrate. In addition, the word laulau for ‘leaf’ recalls the Samoan lau, ‘leaf of a tree’.

The Nakanai language appears to have absolutely no connection with the languages of the Sulka, the O Mengen or the Tůmuip on the south coast of New Britain. Only the words, a uamba (‘the axe’) and a visso (‘the knife’) that we heard during our first visit to the O Mengen at Waterfall Bay, seem to have found their way across New Britain.

The term for ‘sago’, a labia, almost coincides with the term used in the New Ireland language, a bia.

In spite of the vast difference in character, a great number of words show great similarity or even complete identity with words from the language of the peninsula. Words like pitimulu (‘to smoke’), tobēni (‘tabu’), obéne (‘fishing net’), galamu (‘garamut drum’) and others, may perhaps in small part have been introduced by the Gazelle Peninsula people annually gathering shell money, but mostly they hark back to relationships of older date; see, for example, Table 27.

Even more surprising is the similarity and, in places, total correspondence, in grammatical forms. 336

A is the definite and indefinite article for all genders. On the other hand, a special personal article does not appear to exist, except in names that they have adopted from their friends on the Gazelle Peninsula.

Corresponding here to the possessive genitive with kai, is one with manei; for example, a māvo manei Saēka, ‘the taro of Sāeka’.

Also, a genitive with na exists, with the same meaning as on the north coast, like a vua na obu, ‘the fruit of the tree’; a malala na obu, ‘the blossom of the tree’.

Besides the singular, the personal pronoun has the triple plural, and in the dual, triple and plural it has inclusive and exclusive forms as well, as the scheme shows:

Correspondingly, the suffix possessive pronoun is common here, just as on the Gazelle Peninsula:

Counting is based on the 10 system.

In conjugation of the verb, three tenses are differentiated: present, past and future.

The imperative in the singular coincides with the simple infinitive form of the verb. I do not have examples of the dual, triple and plural forms.

Negation is achieved by placing boa, or saboa, in front of the verb.

It seems that here too, as on the Gazelle Peninsula, verbs can be doubled, but, here, doubling does not occur so frequently.

Also, the prefix va is the causative prefix in front of verbs here; for example, davut, ‘to ache’, vadavutisi, ‘to cause pain’.

The prefix ma serves to form the reciprocal, like lobe, ‘to insult’; mailobe, ‘to insult one another’; maubi or masi, to fight with one another’.

The entire passive voice, with the exception of a few perfect participles, seems also to be missing here, and to be replaced by circumlocution with the active form.

It is unfortunately not possible for me to go into greater detail about the verb, nor to be able to establish general rules on the other types of word, due to the small number of notes that I was able to make during a trip.

With the numerous adverbs, it was surprising to me that the same word, alisa, was used for ‘the day before yesterday’ and ‘the day after tomorrow’, while ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ (alavi and savulo) are precisely differentiated.

In adverbs of place I feel able to conclude, at least after a few examples like tana, ‘there’, ‘yonder’; utano, ‘outwards’; usala, ‘above’; umasala, ‘upwards’, that there is differentiation by use of separate forms and also between rest and movement, as on the Gazelle Peninsula.

For language comparison we add a small group from the Nakanai vocabulary and follow this with several examples for characterisation of euphony as well as sentence construction. In pronunciation it must be pointed out that the ‘s’ is always pronounced like ‘ss’.