ABSTRACT
The most fundamental terminological distinction to be found here is that referring to ‘soil’, ‘land’ or ‘habitat’, on the one hand, and to ‘sea’, on the other. The natives define the first by the noun pwaypwaya, ‘earth’, ‘ground’, ‘terra firma’, and the other by bwarita, ‘sea’. The term pwaypwaya would be used in this sense at sea to define a distant vague form as being a piece of land and not a reef or cloudbank. In description or information the natives would say:—
T. 1.
Bayse
valu
i-ka'ita
pwaypwaya,
i-sisu
bwarita.
this here
village
he return
soil
he sit
sea
