LIGHT ON MAORI.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 21, 26 January 1911, Page 3

LIGHT ON MAORI.

• 4" A LARGE NEW DICTIONARY. 20,000 WORDS" IN SIGHT. _ For eight years Archdeacon William*, in his spare time, has been working on, the enlargement of the dictionary written by his father, Bishop Williams, years ago. This period may seenii lengthy, but the task has involved muclii careful research. , Compiling an ac- | curate Maori dictionary is not as easyi [as turning out fiction. The Archdeacon I has worked on the card index system. [ He sent out over 20,000 cards to various Maori scholars, and he estimates that the vocabulary will average a word pep card— a total double the number oi words in his father's book. When ha began he expected to be chiefly am editor, to sift and co-ordinate the information collected by him, but he was soon constrained to join in the searchi for new words, and captured many) hundreds. Another operation which required many long hours of study lavi lin verifying references. The making! ■' ot even one book may be endless, when) 1"*1 "* it is a dictionary. I Mr. A. S. Atkinson, of Nelson, who died about eight years ago, was- tha pioneer of the new edition. He had an idea of collecting Maori words, and in. ducing other people to assist in making ?xT-?,? nflldQrable enlargement of Biahop Williams'* dictionary. Mr. Atkinson's Maori papers were handed over to Archdeacon Williams, who promptly place* himself m communication with a number of people who were experts in tie Maori language. Their response to tha invitation was hearty. The Archdeacon, speaking to a Post representative today, mentioned his indebtedness to. the Revs. F. H. Spencer, T. Qv Hammond, F. J. Fletcher, and Mohi lurei (a native clergyman), Fath« Becker the late Mr. C. E. NelscT Messrs Percy Smith, Elsdon Best, I? Iregear, G. H. Davies, R. H. Matthews, and many others. He also received tha official support of the Polynesian Society and the Government placed at his dis! posai the manuscript on which Mr Oolenso had been working for many years. Another valuable aid was tho list of Morton words collected by tha r ate i M £ &• S M d) of Cha t h am Manda., In 1906 the Archdeacon Went to Capetown and spent six weeks in reading through a quantity of important. Maori material which Sir George Grey had cok lected. An important feature of the dictionary—in addition to the thousands of new words not included in any previous work— will be an extensive assortment of examples of the use of words. As far as possible these have been taken; from genuine Maori writings, and not 1 pakeha versions or translations. Even with all the pains taken to make the vocabulary as complete as possible, the Archdeacon confesses that a great numi ber of Maori words will be unrecorded , lhis omission is dv© to the fact thafc many words, in practice, are confinedi to comparatively narrow districts'. The author has done his best to secure the; assistance, of people in many scattered) districts, but it has been quite impossible to make any exhaustive study of the peculiarities of many of these districts. The author has got to the: stage of preparing his "copy" for the. printer, but these finishing touches will take some months. Archdeacon Williams has not growni weary of his labour. Already his mind! is working ahead to a treatise of Maori proverbs, and he has a vision of a. com* parative Polynesian dictionary.