TRACKING THE MAORI.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 18 September 1925, Page 8

TRACKING THE MAORI.

PROFESSOR McMILLAN BROWN’S HOBBY.

DIPS INTO THE AINU TONGUE

MAORIS’ INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGIN

If 1) crosses the Pacific many more times Professor McMillan Brown, oi Canterbury .University College, will be almost as well known as the Niagara herself. Dike the man in Kipling’s poem “The Old Trail,” every time tlie 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 eves, and as a professor must read, lie hit on the expedient of following the sun for the benefit of the long daylight hours. Incidentally lie goes poking into all sorts of odd places lor traces of the Maoris and other Polynesians, and he scents out anything that seems to indicate, no matter how remotelv, that it will help in unravelling, tlnit fascinating puzzle. “Where was their original home?” Professor Brown has just returned to New Zealand from Honolulu, where he spent quite a lot of time analysing the vocabulary of the Ainu language which was supposed to he the original of Japanese, comparing it with modern Japanese, Polynesian and Indo-European. While lie did not by any means finish the task he sete lumself lie was very pleased with .the result of his investigations. It- might be asked what on earth the Ainu language had to go 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 m Polynesia, and 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. Tlie word in Ainu is ‘po.’ ,Colloquially it is ‘bo.’ Take the Ainu word ‘,rai,’ which means under-world. In Maori the word is TeingaA “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 1 have almost come to the conclusion that it is the primeval form of Indo-European.” ' .Professor Brow n went on to say that he was of opinion um 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 must have left the original home at some very early age. In his opinion this migration took place i n the stone age. Had the Polynesians got thenlanguage through the Sanskit as some investigators say they did, they would liave come over with the whole ten numbers, instead of coming with oul\ two Another very significant fact which identified them with the Stone Age. civilisation was the entire absence of pottery in Central and Eastern Pacific, where 1 lie Polynesians were settled, while as soon as one got to 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 wlio sought a Sanskrit origin for the ,Polynesian language were quite on the Vrong track, and that it- would be found in tlie Indo-European.