Phonemes

Sound output and sound input makes an interrelated system. If the language has many sounds, then the ear will be tuned to this and all those sounds will also be distinguished. If the language has few sounds, then the ear will not be able to distinguish between more sounds than what is necessary.

The inability to distinguish between the semi-vowels 'r' and 'l' which the Polynesians share with e.g. the Chinese people indicate that they have only one semi-vowel, covering both these sounds. They have only one semi-vowel phoneme.

A phoneme is a sound that is used for carrying information. Two sounds, like 'r' and 'l', which are not distinguished by the ear must be a single phoneme. It doesn't matter if you pronounce a word with the sound 'r' or with the sound 'l', these sounds are equal in meaning and therefore indistinguishable for the ear.

In Proto-Polynesian there were two semi-vowel phonemes (which may be written as 'r' and 'l') though we do not know if these two sounds were exactly like those we pronounce. On the other hand we pronounce 'r' and 'l' in different ways depending on language, dialect and personal idiom. The ear can quickly tune in to such differences.

"In a British colony, where the common speech is retentive of certain quasi-dialectic peculiarities not unknown in the mother country, but noticeable because of their reasonable unfamiliarity in American common speech, I heard frequently the locution 'wisitors, vorshipful sir!' ...

By careful attention of the ear I found that these speakers said neither vorshipful nor worshipful, neither wisitors nor visitors, but an intermediate sound or two slightly variant sounds, somewhere midway between the sounds accepted by us as standard, the germ-sound.

Let us temporarily represent this by WV. What was said, then, was the midway sounds, WVorshipful and WVisitors. Upon our ears, attuned to a sharp distinction between V and W, the impact of WVorshipful impressed us with the fact that it declined from the recognized W value; therefore we must go the whole distance to our next recognizable sound, the V. Similarly the declension from the standard V in WVisitors carries us without stop to W." (Churchill)

Simply put, the vowel sounds in Polynesia are: a, e, i, o, u and their pronounciation as we would expect.

However, our ears are not capable of distinguishing the nuances that the Polynesians use.

"... the vowel is the skeleton of every Polynesian vocable, a fixed value, structural entity subject only to secular modification and that but rarely. On another occasion I have registered my impression of the Polynesian vowel:

A man with a quick ear and an obedient tongue may, as the result of long discipline, acquire almost perfect use of the Samoan consonants, but it is most probable that no Caucasian has mastered the art of the Samoan vowels. It is as in their music; the intervals, the supertones and the fractions of the tone are developed on a system which we find it impossible to aquire. It establishes a new group of units of vibration of the vocal cords, for which the fundamental diapason of our own speech is not set in unison.*

*17 Journal of the Polynesian Society, 87. Withdrawn by amputation from the context which expressed the purpose which the last sentence was designed to serve this may now appear misleading. It should be understood that the variety does not obtain in definitely measurable vibration of the vocal cords, but does obtain in the mass of overtones derivable from changes in the form of the head cavities, whether singly or in conjunction, acting as soft-walled sound-chambers.

Holding this opinion I must discountenance any idea of emptiness in the vowel tract. It seems empty only for the reason that the collectors of the vocabularies upon which our studies are based either have failed to catch the rich shadings of the vowels through ears trained to find the strength of speech in the consonants, or have recognized their inability to represent them by any of the type resources at their command. We who can make the type fairly speak for us must commiserate these poor missionaries with their shabby fonts.

I might evaluate these vowels by proper symbols in several of the languages under collateral review, but that would remain unsatisfactory because incomplete. In fact, before these languages have become too far corrupted, records should be taken phongraphically, so that a careful study may be made and a common system of expression devised in order that their full vowel beauty may be represented as an object at which to aim, even though we may fall short of the mark." (Churchill)

The Indo-European languages (and especially the old ones now extinct) are characterized by very many consonant sounds, all carrying different meanings. Polynesian, on the other hand, has few consonant sounds and these sounds are not heavily burdened with meaning.

Therefore the consonant sounds are not very constant between the different Polynesian languages:

"I have already set forth my belief that the strong element, the enduring element, the root element of the Polynesian vocable lies in its vowel structure. Indeed I have made the preliminary announcement of a discovery which I find more and more reason to regard as valid and upon which I shall elaborate in writing the history of the formative stages of isolating speech, namely, that the word-root is reducible to a vowel-seed modified by consonantal modulants having a coefficient value of certain definite sorts. That the consonants, in comparison with this sturdy vowel, are weak is shown by their fluctuations in value as the languages of this family undergo their secular changes in two somewhat separable households.

This weakness it is impossible to represent by any system of type upon any diagram, which must of necessity be both fixed and formal. Upon comparison with the consonant scheme of our own language we seem to find that the Proto-Samoan lacks only our palatal sibilants and our lingual spirants. Superficially examined, the Proto-Samoan seems to possess in the vertical series exactly our own equipment of labials, and in the horizontal series our complete equipment of mutes extending across all three buccal areas in which vocal sounds are produced.

This is misleading; we are errant through the fact that we are obliged to set down the primordial and uncertain sounds through the agency of our graphic symbols for fixed and positively determined sounds. The error would not arise if it were possible to employ comprehensive symbols expressive each of a germ-sound somewhere midway within these pairs of mutes which we classify as sonant and surd; and in the case of the labials the range is wider, for we find not only an interplay between sonant and surd, but even one of such wide range as to admit of frequent interchanges between mute and spirant; and sometimes this extends as far as the aspiration, and even to the semi-vowel proximate to the labial series." (Churchill)

“With ... three exceptions ... (s-v, ng-n, t-k) the whole play of consonant mutation in Polynesian is a matter of vertical change. When a palatal changes it changes to another palatal, lingual modified remains lingual still, and labial remans labial even though its play of mutation carries it bodily into the vowel tract. But there is no horizontal movement, the labial under stress to change does not become palatal or lingual.” (Churchill 2)

In Polynesia the duration of a vowel sound sometimes carries information, is phonemic.

In the old Rapanui language there probably were three different lengths of the vowel sounds:

"Zur Vokalquantität läßt sich aufgrund der Quellen nichts Genaueres sagen; aus einigen Angaben bei ENGLERT (1948, 328 f.) scheint hervorzugehen, daß sie dreifach abgestuft ist, wobei 'Kürze' und 'Länge' in einigen Fällen wortunterscheidende Funktion haben, während 'Überlänge' auf sprechphysischen Gesetzmäßigkeiten beruht.¹⁾

1) Es ist nicht ausgeschlossen, daß es sich bei diesen 'Überlängen' in Wirklichkeit um Fälle von Vokalspaltung handelt; ENGLERT selbst bemerkt a.a.O., daß unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen ein a 'fast' wie aa lautet. Vokalspaltung aufgrund sprechdynamischer Vorgänge hat CHURCHWARD im TONGA beobachtet (1953, 10 f.) !" (Bergmann)

Then there is the typographical problem:

"The general rule of the first missionaries in Tahiti was to assign to the vowels their Italian value and to sound the consonants as in English. That rule holds throughout Polynesia. We note a few exceptions, more apparent than real, since the systematic collation of comparative material will introduce them into the pages of this dictionary.

The French missionaries have very commonly adopted a system of indicating vowels of the long quantity by doubling the vowel. This is found in Rapanui, in Uvea, and in Futuna.

They have, however, adopted from the alphabets of English source the employment of u of the Italian sound, and do not transliterate the sound by their more familiar ou.

The doubled vowel is found in Tonga also, though that speech was reduced to writing before the French influence was introduced. It will be seen that a typographical convenience underlies this usage: vowel type cast with macron and micron respectively were beyond the reach of missionaries struggling in distant nooks of sea." (Churchill)

In Hawaii the letter 't' is missing, instead they use 'k':

"The letters of the Hawaiian alphabet were established in 1826 by a committee of missionaries who used the letters to represent the sounds as they heard them. At this time, the change from t to k had begun on the island of Hawai'i but had not reached Kauai where t was used until comparatively recent times.

Colonel Spaulding, from the reports to the American Board of Missions in Boston, prepared a paper read before the Hawaiian Historical Society in 1930 in which he showed how the alphabet was compiled. The committee of nine missionaries took various letters in turn and voted on them. The final report, facetiously headed 'Report of the Committee of Health on the state of the Hawaiian language', set forth its conclusions in terms to justify the name assumed by the committee. The greatest difficulty was experienced in choosing between l and r, k and t, and w and v.

'K is deemed of sufficent capacity to perform its own functions and that of its counterpart T. 

L though two pills have been given to expel it is to remain to do its own office and that of its yoke fellow R. 

R though closely connected with the vitals is expelled by five or six votes or expellants, though nearly the same quantity of preservatives has been applied. 

T though claiming rights as a native member has suffered amputation by the knife and saw of the majority.

V, a contigous member and claiming similar rights, has suffered the same fate, and a gentle [illegible] has been applied to dry the wound of both.'

Thus the committe of health experts chose l, k, and w, but as r, t, and v are the consonants used in Tahiti, whence the Hawaiians came, I have a feeling that the purgatives and the knife were applied to the wrong patient in each pair.

A Polynesian kinswoman of mine asked, as I was leaving the Bishop Museum, 'Hele 'oe i ke kaona?' (Are you going to the kaona?). 'What is kaona?' I asked, though I knew quite well. 'Town', she replied. 'That is how we say it in Hawaiian.' 'Why don't you say taone?' I asked. 'That is the way the Maoris say it and taone is nearer in sound to town than kaona.' 'How can I', she replied, 'when there is no t in the Hawaiian alphabet?'" (Buck)

To complicate matters, the sound 'k' is tending to disappear:

"In certain of these languages a somewhat modern impulse has caused the dropping of k. This is strongly marked in Samoa; it is found in the Marquesas. In Samoe the k has vanished so recently - let it be understood that the reference is to the surd palatal mute and not to the kappation of t which is now conquering modern Samoan as it has succeeded in conquering Hawaiian - the k has so lately dropped out that it actually leaves an audible hole in the word, the vowels remain disjunct from on either side of the gap, crasis does not take place.

In the Samoan alphabetical system the place of the vanished k is taken by the inverted comma; thus fa‘a is the modern form a preceding faka and is pronounced the same in every particular except that the k has gone away. The choice of the character is governed in this case also by typographical convenience; as the comma represents the briefest breath-pause in the continuing sentence, so the comma inverted might logically represent this infinitesimal but positive breath-pause in the continuity of the word. The sign is in but rare other use; the possibility of the need arising in Samoan composition to mark the opening of a quotation within a quotation seemed, and very reasonably, negligible.

In the Marquesas the type supplies represented the provision of the common French chapel, which in this particular happens to differ from the English in the important detail that the marks of quotation line at the foot of the type instead of at the top and are therefore less practicable for such employment in representing the absent k. But the French fonts must carry a complete supply of accented vowels, a waste provision in the Pacific where the seldom-varied penult accent is almost autographic. The acutely accented type of these otherwise useless characters have been employed by Bishop Dordillon to represent vowels from before which consonants have dropped away. We should not fail to note that he is by no means accurate in such employment of the diacritical mark; in my collation herewith I have not assumed to correct his dictionary record, even though the compared material shows that no loss of consonant has taken place." (Churchill)

Churchill (cfr K above) used the word fa‘a (= faka) as an example of the k-sound being transformed into a glottal stop ('breath-pause in the continuity of the word'). In Rapanui we have haka, the sound h being used instead of the sound f. There is no glottal stop in haka.

Bergmann has the Rapanui example taku ('my') which corresponds to the Tahitian ta‘u. He furthermore explains that there was a tendency first to eliminate the sound k at the beginning of words (and instead using glottal stop) while still retaining it inside the word:

"Übrigens ist es nicht ausgeschlossen, daß in der Sprache der alten Gewährsleute ENGLERTs sogar der wort anlautende feste Vokaleinsatz [i.e. glottal stop] noch vorkam, aber der Aufmerksamkeit dieses Autors entgangen ist. In dieser Zusammenhang sei an ANDREWS erinnert, der ein hervorragender Kenner des HAWAII war und dennoch mit Bezug auf diesen Dialekt schreibt: 'k at the beginning of a word is dropped, but in the middle of a word is represented by a peculiar guttural catch' (1865, XIV); tatsächlich wird der feste Vokaleinsatz (<*k bzw. <*g) aber auch heute noch im HAWAII im Wortanlaut gesprochen (vgl. JUDD 1952)!"

However, the changes of time makes it necessary to distinguish between old and modern Rapanui:

"Der feste Vokaleinsatz (‘) ist im modernen Osterinsel-Idiom geschwunden (vgl. METRAUX' Feststellung: 'so far as I can trust my ear, there is no trace of the glottal stop on Easter Island,' 1940, 32; METRAUX' Beobachtungen datieren aus dem Jahre 1934).

Der Schwund des festen Vokaleinsatzes hat sich wahrscheinlich in zwei Phasen vollzogen: zunächts im Wort anlaut, sodann - und zwar unter dem Einfluß des TAHITI - im Wort inlaut...

Das Textmaterial in ENGLERTs Veröffentlichungen (= ENGLERT 1939 und 1948, 378-417) dokumentiert auch hinsichtlich des festen Vokaleinsatzes im wesentlichen den Zustand der Osterinsel-Sprache vor ihrer Korrumpierung durch das TAHITI: alle wortanlautenden Vokale werden weich eingesetzt, während der feste Vokaleinsatz im Wortinlaut noch erhalten ist...

ENGLERTs Darstellung des RAPANUI gründet sich ganz offensichtlich auf Beobachtungen, die er an der Sprache einer kleinen Anzahl sehr alter Gewährsleute machte, und sogar dort, wo er eine Probe der 'modernen' Sprache geben möchte (in dem Bericht über eine Reise nach Tahiti im Textanhang zum linguistischen Teil von 'La Tierra de Hotu Matu‘a), 'korrigiert' er durch weningstens die Aussprache seinen Gewährsmannes, indem er durchgehend den festen Vokaleinsats bezeichnet."

Wheras Vanaga has two different words, tau ('perch' etc) and ta‘u ('year' etc), Churchill has both these words under the rubric tau. Churchill, however, does show where the accent is not where expected: taúa ('we two').