Page 2 Advertisements Column 3

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 185, 3 February 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

The curse of Babel lies heavy on New fJuinoa. Mr. James E. Liddiard, the English traveller, who is at present in New Zealand, stated in the course of an in-terview-that within the limits of a Papuan region fifty miles square, he had found no fewer than seventeen distinct languages and dialects in use. Motu, the language spoken by the natives of the district about Port Moresb}', has been made the literary language, and it is into this tongue that the Bible has been translated. Crude as the languages and dialects of New Guinea are, they are not so poor in range as might be imagined. Mr. Liddiard, who has mastered nine of the dialects, mentions that he found, somewhat to his surprise, that Motu, the Port Moresby language, contains words and phrases which translate literally into such expressions as "darling child," "bashful.maiden," "hospitable man," and "good-humored man." These phrases seem to' indicate that even the cannibal mind is capable of traversing some of the finer ranges of feeling and sentiment.