A Vanishing Language

LIKE the Gaul of Caesar’s Commen taries, the native language of the Society Islands is divided into three parts Tahitian, Franco-Tahitian, and “pidgin” Tahitian.

The Tahitian —a speech from which, through the centuries, all gutterals, nasals and sibilants have been cast out; its syntax moulded for euphony; its vocabulary rich with terms to express the poetic genius of the Polynesian mind is obsolescent. In recent years, it has been heard only in some of the churches; in Fareputuputuraa, when some venerable elder expounded the Volume of the Sacred Law; or when that prince of orators, High Chief Teriierooiterai, spoke at public occasions.

The average young person on Tahiti uses Franco-Tahitian to express the profundity of his thought. This form of speech is a compound of French and Tahitian in which the grammatical struc ture of both languages has been jet tisoned, the inflection of the verb con signed to the realm of forgotten things and the vocabulary reduced to the cere brations of the Jazz Age.

It is a pity; for the French language, when spoken by educated Tahitians, has added beauty from the soft intonation of their voices. The classic Tahitian, for merly spoken with rhythmic cadence, was a delight to the ear.

Compared with its Tahitian equivalent, “pidgin” English is a medium worthy of the polished periods of an Addison. This jargon of Tahiti, which we believe to be the world’s masterpiece of formless gibberish, has become the lingua franca of Central Polynesia.

After the passage of another genera tion or two, the beautiful soft Tahitian will have taken its place beside Sanskrit as a museum piece, having passed forever from the speech of man.

That this degeneration of language is no new thing in the Islands, the author of “Ra’iatea La Sacree” (who wrote in the latter years of the last century) bears witness: “Those who wrote in the middle of the 19th century complain that al ready the traditions and customs are effaced; that the use of the ancient lan guage is departing. They declare that the old people can talk among themselves without any fear of being comprehended

by the young folk. What shall we say of the actual state of the language at this time? At Tahiti, the old Tahitian language —too difficult to master—has given place to the ‘language of the beach’, a species of ‘petit n’egre’. One must fly to the Leeward Islands: he must go in the remote districts of Ra’iatea, or rather, to Porapora, to Maupiti, to recover some fine old words, some antique expressions.”

During the subsequent 40-odd years since the above was written, the break ing up of old language and custom has

steadily proceeded.

Few people in the world, and certainly no branch of the Polynesian race, have so thoroughly discarded the traditions, the customs and the language of their ancestors as have the Tahitians. —A.C.R.

Mr. G. W. L. Townsend, District Officer at Salamaua, New Guinea, arrived in Australia recently on leave.

Mr. J, S. Smith, who has been Con servator of Forests in Fiji since 1938, ar rived in Australia recently en route to Malaya. He was accompanied by Mrs.

Smith.

Mr - and Mrs - G ' L wilson ' and their In' Plantation,

Miss Lucy Willoughby resigned from the New Guinea Mission and returned to Australia in September. She joined the Mission in 1929 and spent several years in Papua, her last station being Boianai.

Recently, she has been suffering from ill health.