A Vocabulary of the Ponape Dialect, Ponape-English and English-Ponape; With a Grammatical Sketch

Abstract

THIS Vocabulary by no means claims to be a complete list of Ponape words. My effort has always been rather to secure accurate lexical and grammatical knowledge of such words and phrases as came in my way, than to distend my list. Hence there are a great number of technical terms, relating to the various native arts and customs, and many poetical and nearly or quite obsolete words, that have escaped my pen and even my ear; together with, no doubt, some that occur more or less frequently in common parlance. Many additional points of interest will be brought out in a perfect dictionary, should any one have the knowledge and leisure to compile it; but I shall have greatly failed of my object, if this attempt, together with the appended Grammatical Notes, do not lay open all the more important particulars needed by practical students and by scientific philologists. As to the definitions, no one who has endeavored to put down even the more obvious meanings of the words of an uncultivated tongue will be surprised at my acknowledgment of the imperfections of this first extended attempt upon the dialect of Ponape. The numerous nouns which are never used without a possessive I have usually entered without the pronominal suffix; always, however, noting the fact that they are not to be used alone. Adjectives I have in general divested of the substantive prefix me.