language that

Want to learn a language that should have died?

Want to say it in Chamorro, Marshellese or Tahitian? Cry no more—we have the very books that will tell you how it’s done.

Spoken Chamorro is by Donald

M. Topping; Spoken Marshallese

by Byron W. Bender; and

Grammaire & Dictionnaire de la langue Tahitienne comes from the Societe des Oceanistes in Paris.

Although the lessons in the Micro nesian languages were not designed exclusively for the US Peace Corps they are part of an intensive course set up in Hawaii for Peace Corps volunteers.

They can, in their present printed form, be used by anybody, of course, although the United States habit of changing expatriate personnel at short intervals makes learning any specific Micronesian language a doubtful asset.

Should have died out

In many ways it might be said that Chamorro should have died out as a language long ago, just as the original Chamorros died off or were virtually exterminated during the early days of the Spanish conquest of Guam and the other Mariana Islands.

However, the basic elements of the language have survived and it is spoken, as the mother tongue, by the 50,000 or so indigenous inhabit ants of this group.

Chamorro is not related to the other languages of Micronesia and its closest language relatives are in the Philippines. During the Spanish era it acquired many Spanish words —including their numbering system— but its construction is in no way related to Spanish.

During the Japanese occupation of the northern Marianas, probably Japanese words were also adopted and it is now again in a period of rapid change due to American influence.

English is now taught in the schools and most parents want their children to learn it. Nonetheless, with all this, Chamorro is still important. For workers among the people, who really, want to know what is going

on, a knowledge of it is vital, parti cularly in the Trust Territory Marianas. As a relic of their colonial past—Spanish, then German, then Japanese, then American—the general comprehension of English is atro cious, except among the newly educated.

The Marshallese language services the 20,000 inhabitants of those scattered atolls and comes in two main dialects. The dialects are not so different that they cannot be treated in one book. The greatest difficulty the beginner will have is not in dialects, but in the fact that the language has a number of sounds for which there is no English equivalent.

As well as the formal lesson on grammar and construction, both books have extensive vocabularies, with English equivalents. They are published by University of Hawaii Press, at SUS 7 each.

The grammar and dictionary of Tahitian is the fifth edition of the work originally prepared by Monsignor Tepano Jaussen, first Vicar Apostolic of Tahiti, a century ago. The present edition has been revised by Monsignor P. Maze and the Rev. Fr. Hubert Coppenrath.

Tahitian, like all modern languages is growing, and the new edition has been produced with this in mind.

About one-quarter of the book is devoted to grammar and the rest to an extensive dictionary As Tahitian is a dialect of Maori, spoken over a wide area of Polynesia— notably in the Cook Islands and New Zealand —the new edition, the first since 1949, will be welcomed by secholars outside as well as inside Tahiti.