MAORI MEMORIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18876, 21 February 1933, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES.

INTERESTING VIGNETTES

(Recorded by “J.H.S.”) NOHEA TE MAORI? Nohea (whence)? awliea (when)? keiwhea (where) ? and other adverbs of the Maori so resemble their bullish eiiuivalents that a Maori, humourist replied lo the first question, "Nowhere.” A German philosopher wno realised tlie importance of philology as an aid to history reierred to tlie study of languages as "the discovery of a new world.” Maori philology and mythology, new-born twin sisters but a century old, gave lresii impetus lo that study throughout the world. Near at hand we have the almost identical dialects of Polynesia and Hawaii, with curious variants, as in the numerals talii, rua, toru, wha, rima, etc., sounded there as talii, lua, tolu, lima. In Tregear’s “Ayrian Maori" such striking similarities with Sanscrit, Greek, Latin and English seem to prove that the Maori and the Hindu at least were of common origin. As there are two nations whose vital words, such as sun, moon, star, god, man, woman, are almost identical, then of the two the Maori is indeed the son.

Tregear and others w r ho have made an exhaustive study of the question may claim to have proved that Maori and Aryan languages and people, are one, that the Maori left India within four thousand years, and that he has been in New' Zealand almost as long. Even now a Maori linguist can understand a Hindu in a very short time.