REMARKS on the Otaheitean Language.

The language is very soft, having a great number of vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs.

Every word, almost, begins with a vowel, which they most commonly drop.

It is also very metaphorical, as I have observed in many instances; as Matapoa, a person blind of an eye, which literally is Night-eye. Mataavai, the name of the bay we anchored in, literally signifies Watery-eye; which appellation is not unapt from the great quantity of rain which falls in the bay. Tehaia, a woman's name, who being lost when a child, her friends went about, crying Tehai? which means, Where is she?

The natives could not repeat, after us, the sounds of the letters, Q, X, and Z, without great difficulty; G, K, and S, they could not pronounce at all.

Many of the names of the people of our ship having the G, K, or S, in them, they could not approach nearer the sound of them than as follows:

Voyaging Accounts