Question to Polynesian expert

[Gérard Francillon]

Well, well... no harm debating!

Ross Clark wrote:
>
>
> > Well, did he have any Malay shiphands on board the ship?
> >
> > Rod Orlina
>
> I don't believe so, but it would be easy enough to check, if one
> thought there was any point. The Cook voyages are extremely well
> documented.
	Let's try checking on the Dutch voyages on the Sunda/Jawa
route at the same time.

>
> I'm puzzled at this reluctance to accept a quite straightforward
> etymology. The word does not appear in English before Cook's
> narrative; Cook is quite clear that he is introducing a native
> Polynesian word for this novel practice; and the word thereupon
> becomes established in English (the OED has at least four citations
> from other writers before 1800). Where's the problem?
>
> Ross Clark

	I have an in-built tendency to be reluctant when things are
getting a bit too straight and simple.

Now the Cook - Bougainville - OED reference string is
perfectly clear and should be accepted.
	
	Yet, as there is a puzzle...
> Cook spells it "tattow"; Bougainville a few years earlier
 had spelled it "tataou" (in French). Both of these are
 clearly attempts to represent the Polynesian /tatau/. If
 there is a puzzle here, it is why the final syllable
 changed from /taw/ to /tu:/ in English.
		...one should rather recognize that there
may be two different origins for the same words, along
two different import routes.  One by two scientists and
their teams/crews, the other by the steady trade of goods,
objects, people, and ways and means of naming them between
the Indies and the Dutch ports.  Plenty of things happened
in those old harbours and emporia. And still happen at
times, as I found when I sailed on Bugis "selup" from
Sunda Kelapa to Jambi, and Palembang, and back quite some
time ago.

Besides one should be rather happy to realize that both the
Polynesians and the Javanese use the same word for the same
thing... (I apologize for using the approximate
non-linguist expression "same"!)

Gérard Francillon