TRACKING THE MAORI.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 218, 15 September 1925, Page 9

TRACKING THE MAORI.

| PROF. MCMILLAN BROWN'S HOBBY. JBIPS INTO THE AINU TONGUE. — —- MAORIS IXDO-EUROPEAN ORIGIN. i II he crosses the Pacific many more i times Professor McMillan Brown, of Canterbury University College, will be almost as well known as the Niagara ; herself. Like the man in Kipling's ipoem, "The Old Trail," every time the ! summer wanes the professor" feels compelled to pull out on the out trail, the old trail, the-trail that is always new, and follow the sun. Many years ago he found out that reading at night by artificial light was fatal to the eyes, and as a professor must read, he hit on the expedient of following the sun for the benefit of the long daylight hours. Incidentally he goes poking into all Sorts of odd places for traces of the ; Maoris and the other Polynesians, and ;he scents out anything that seems to i indicate, no matter how remotely, that iit will help in unravelling that "fascin--1 ating puzzle. "Where was their original 'home?"

Professor Brown came back yesterday by the Niagara from Honolulu, where he spent quite a lot of time analysing the vocabulary of the Ainu language which was supposed to be the original of Japanese, comparing it with modern Japanese, Polynesian and IndoEuropean. While he did not by any means "finish the task he set himself he was very pleased-with the result of his investigations. It might be asked what on earth the Ainu language had to do with the whence of the Maori or the Polynesian. The answer is quite simple. If affinities were found between the two languages it would surely be a true indication of a common origin, for it must be remembered that the Central and Eastern Pacific were isolated and had been isolated for a very long period of time, and' had had no communication with that part of the Pacific from which the Ainu language came.

"My own impression," said the professor, "is that about four-fifths of the roots in the Ainu are the same as in Polynesia, ana from 30 to 50 per cent of the words are very much the same in Ainu and Polynesian. In Japanese there is a small proportion of words that have come through the Ainu, words that resemble words in Polynesian. For instance there is the Maori -word 'potiki'- which means a little child. The word in Ainu is 'po.' Colloquially it is 'bo.' Take the Ainu word 'rai,' which means under-world. In Maori the word is 'reinga.'

''The author of the vocabulary that I was studying thinks the Ainu is an Indo-European language, and I have reached the same conclusion. In my opinion it came to the Pacific thousands of years ago, and I have almost come to the conclusion that it is the primeval form of Indo-Eurdpeah." Professor Brown went on to say that he was of opinion that the Polynesians left their Indo-European home at a very early stage in their development; in fact before they had learned to count up to more than two. The similarity between *'one" and "two" in Polynesian and the Indo-European languages, indicated common origin, and the marked manner in which the Polynesians used the singular and dual numbers, and then lumped the rest, as it were, proved to him that they must have left the originSl home at some very early age. Tn his opinion this migration, took place in the stone age. Had the Polynesians got their language through the Sanskrit as some investigators say they did, they would have come over with the whole ten numbers, instead of coming with only two. Another very significant fact .which identified them with the Stdhe Age civilisation was the entire l abfeehce of pottery in Central ftnd E&sterrl Pacific, where the Polynesians were settled, while as soon as one got trj the Western Pacific where the Melanesian stock came in* pottery was found all over the place. The professor said he was more than ever convinced that, the investigators who sought a Sanskrit origin for the Polynesian language were quite on the wrong track, and that it would be found in the Indo-European.