An Ingenious Theory.

Roman Words In

Gilbertese.

[To The Editor.] ACCORDING to tradition (vide works by Mr. A. F. Grimble on the people of the Gilbert Islands) there were, amongst the parent stocks of the Gil bertese race, fair-skinned people known as I-Matang (inhabitants of Matang), whose home was a four-square island towards the north-west.

These very probably were Indo- Aryans from the Ganges Valley, such as colonised Ceylon, Java, Cambodia, etc. There is, however, another possi bility.

When the army of Crassus was de stroyed at Carrhae in 53 8.C., some 10,000 prisoners are known to have gone into slavery in Parthia. It may well be supposed that the Parthian king utilised the military qualities of these Roman soldiers by setting them to garrison his eastern frontier, whence escape to Roman territory would have been im possible; and thence they may have escaped eastward across India to the Bay of Bengal—or southward to the Arabian Sea —and made their way to the East Indies.

There are several words in the Gil bertese language which (though they may be derived from another Aryan lan guage or from a different source alto gether) have a close resemblance to Batin words of similar meaning.

Such are ruo, to fall or rush down (Latin, ruo, “I fall or rush down”); mate, dead (Latin, mortis) ; mamma, a breast (Latin, mamma); tari, salt (Latin, sal—t and r regularly taking the place in Gil bertese of s and l respectively, as in Tamoa, for Polynesian Samoa); taku, to say (Latin, dico, “I say”); nati, a son or child (Latin, natus); ura, a flame (Latin uro, “I burn”); toka, a lord (Latin, dux,

“a leader”—whence English “Duke”); nikawai, old (Latin, antiquus), etc.

Furthermore, the squareness of “Ma tang” may possibly be a memory of “Rome Quadrata” and of the square camps of the legions.

I am, etc.,

P. T. English.

Ocean Is., 17/10/32.