Transcriber's Note:
A macron (e. g. "ā") indicates a long vowel and a breve (e. g."ă") indicates a short vowel.
Various notes and remarks of less importance to a beginner are set insmaller type: c. f. the last paragraph of the Preface to the First Edition.
There are minor inconsistencies beween the sections listed in the Table ofContents and those in the text itself.
Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained. Apparent errors ofpunctuation, capitals and italics, that are inconsistent with thesense of the text, have been corrected.
Apparent errors or obscure type affecting Maori or English spelling have alsobeen corrected. Maori corrections are listed at the end of the text.
The first edition of thisGrammar having been for many years exhausted, and a considerabledemand for some means of acquiring an accurate knowledge of the Maorilanguage having recently arisen, the author has been induced torepublish the work with such alterations as the attention which he hasin the meantime given to the subject, during long labours oftranslation, has caused him to deem advisable.
Amongst the principal of these alterations is the omission of manypassages exhibiting extreme niceties of the language, which, althoughuseful to the finished scholar, were thought to be scarcely necessaryto the ordinary student, and were complained of as embarrassing to thebeginner.
The author begs to express his acknowledgments to his friend Mr.Fenton, late Resident Magistrate of Waikato, and one of the few whohave studied the language grammatically, for carrying the present workthrough the press.
Independently of minute andnumerous subdivisions, it may, perhaps, be correct to state that thereare spoken in this the northern island seven leading dialects, eachmore or less distinguished from the other—viz., 1st, the Rarawa,or that spoken to the northward of Kaitaia; 2nd, the Ngapuhi, or thatspoken in that portion of the island as far south of Kaitaia as PointRodney on the eastern coast, and Kaipara on the western; 3rd, theWaikato, or that spoken in the district lying between Point Rodney andTauranga on the east, and Kaipara and Mokau on the west; 4th, thatspoken in the Bay of Plenty; 5th, the dialect of the East Cape and itsneighbourhood, in which, perhaps, may be included that of Rotorua,though in these two places many little differences might be detected;6th, that spoken in the line of coast between Port Nicholson and{vi}Wanganui, though here, also, at least four distinct branches might betraced; 7th, and last, that spoken between Wanganui and Mokau. Thedialect of Taupo may be, perhaps, considered a mixture of those ofRotorua and Waikato.
All these may be stated to bear to each other a remarkable radicalaffinity. Many words, it is true, may be found in one which areunknown in another; but the gram