Nauru-English Dictionary

WRITING from Nauru recently, Rev.

Clifford L. Welch tells of the com pletion of a Nauru-English dictionary.

Work is now being commenced on an English-Nauruan dictionary and on a re vised translation of the Nauruan Bible, based on the new official orthography.

This revised phonetic orthography for the Nauruan language was first worked out in 1937-38 by the official Nauruan Langu age Committee set up by the Administra tion, of which the then Director of Edu cation, Mr. W. C. Groves, was chairman, with Rev. Welch and a group of native leaders (including Head Chief T. Detu damo and Head Teacher J. Aroi) as mem bers. It was officially adopted in 1938 and will remove the previous orthographic confusion in the Nauruan -language.

Pioneering work of great magnitude on the Nauruan language was done by Rev. Father Kayser, MSC, who, during oyer 30 years of devoted missionary ser vice in Nauru, made a thorough and comprehensive study of the local native customs, as well as producing a grammar 9f the Nauruan language. Father Kayser is the author of a number of anthropo logical papers on Nauruan subjects in

overseas journals, and has masses of addi tional material in type, the value of which, from the point of view of retaining offi cial records of the Nauru of pre-Euro pean times, is inestimable.

Mr. George Vernon, of Dawson City, Yukon Territory, has recently become a subscriber to the “P.1.M.”. Mr. Vernon spent the period from March, 1881, to March, 1884, in the service of the C.S.R.

Company at Nausori in Fiji, where he was assistant storekeeper and customs clerk. He still remembers vividly the friendships he made among the men and officers of the sugar steamer “Fiona”. It is a far cry from Suva to Dawson City— but Mr. Vernon’s communication shows that any man who has spent a part of his life in the Pacific Islands retains always the memories of those years. It would appear from Mr. Vernon’s letter that the famous Nausori sugar mill was being built in the period he refers to.