A Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language

Abstract

THIS is perhaps as complete a guide to the study of the Samoan language as could be expected under the circumstances. It consists, properly, of four parts: a grammar, which, for obvious reasons, is necessarily disappointing; a chapter on the native poetry, which would be much more useful were the specimens given accompanied by a translation, or at least by more copious notes; an English-Samoan vocabulary of about 4,500 fairly well-selected words, and a Samoan-English dictionary of more than double that number of terms. The editor informs us that many of the names of the indigenous flora and fauna collected by him still remain to be published. They will doubtless be embodied in the large “Comparative Polynesian Dictionary” he is now preparing, and when this is done we shall have at last a well-nigh complete dictionary of the most typical of the eastern Polynesian languages.

A Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language.

By the Rev. George Pratt. Second Edition. Edited by the Rev. S. J. Whitmee, F.R.G.S. (Trübner and Co., 1878.)