in English

Fine memorial in English

A Gilbertese-English dictionary originally compiled by Father E.

Sabatier (deceased), and now trans lated from French by Sister Mary Oliva of the Sacred Heart Mission in Tarawa has been published by South Pacific Commission Publications Bureau.

This dictionary is a fine memorial in English to Father Sabatier. It is proper that he should have one. The original Gilbertese-French text was completed in 1952 and published in duplicated form in 1954. In the pre face to that edition, Father Sabatier acknowledged his debt to earlier com pilers and several Gilbertese helpers.

All of them would have endorsed these words; “ . . . The Gilbertese language is well worth preserving. It can be done only by the written word.

This duplicated dictionary must be improved upon ...” Now that an English version is available, I hope many more people will take up Father Sabatier’s challenge, not least in the area of the developing vocabulary of modern terms which the dictionary does not cover.

I have not yet had a chance to put this edition to practical use, but Sister Oliva’s translation seems to be faithful to, and as fruitful as, the original French. The dictionary is differently constructed from Bingham’s, which has been the Gilbertese-English stand ard reference since it was first pub lished in 1908.

Sabatier has used the letter sequence of the English and French alphabets; and he has chosen, for example, not to record the Gilbertese causative yerbs, identified by the prefix KA, separately from the basic word-forms.

As a consequence, words beginning with the digraph NG are included ander N; and there are fewer, but nore informative, individual entries than in Bingham. I am a little doubt ful about dropping the digraph, but ind it convenient to have the basic word and its derivatives together in ;he one entry.

The inclusion of a dozen words beginning with YE on p. 419 is con fusing even though it more accurately represents the pronunciation than the usual WE to which Sabatier gave primacy in the French edition. But perhaps Sister Oliva directs us to the future? I have long thought that the Gilbertese alphabet needs some new letters—S in particular.

We must be grateful to Father Sabatier, Sister Oliva, The Sacred Heart Mission and the South Pacific Commission for this dictionary. May it inspire Gilbertese scholars to pre serve their tongue, examine and de velop it. I look forward to using it myself. —Reid Cowell. (Published by South Pacific Commission Publications Bureau, Sydney and Noumea; pp. 426; $3.50).

'Miracle' guide

There must be thousands of guides to Britain in existence, but always room for just one more—if it is in the class of A Visitor’s Guide to Britain , by Mary Cathcart Borer.

Written for the overseas visitor who has limited time to spend in the United Kingdom, it is a miracle of compactness in ordinary Fontana, paper-back form. As well as being a

guide to what the visitor can see and do, it is an excellent short history of the UK, minus Ireland, and as such is interesting simply as reading matter without travelling at all.

The book is divided into nine “trips”—London and SE England; the Cotswolds, the Midlands, East Anglia, the North (Yorkshire, Northumber land, Durham), the North-West (Westmorland, the Lake District, Lancashire, Cheshire) the South- West (Somerset, Devonshire, Corn wall), Wales, and Scotland. There is also a chapter on airports and sea ports.

The book has eight pages of pic tures of the best known sights, which could easily be dispensed with, but sadly lacks maps of any sort, even one of the whole British Isles. The nine chapters would have been even more enjoyable if each had been ac companied by a sectional map. Even people who know Britain reasonably well need to relocate themselves and for those who have only a rudiment ary idea of the juxtaposition of Eng lish counties (which are minute in comparison with the vast states or provinces of their own countries) a map is essential. It is a pity that this excellent little book is spoiled by this omission. (A Visitor’s Guide to

Britain. Fontana). 95c.-

IT.