The language of the Friendly Islands has the greatest affinity imaginable to that of New Zealand, of Wateeoo, and Mangeea; and, consequently, to that of Otaheite, and the Society islands. There are also many of their words the same with those used by the natives of Cocos Island, as appears from the vocabulary collected there by Le Maire and Schouten.[218] The mode of pronunciation differs, indeed, considerably, in many instances, from that both of New Zealand and Otaheite; but still a great number of words are either exactly the same, or so little changed, that their common original may be satisfactorily traced. The language, as spoken at the Friendly Islands, is sufficiently copious for all the ideas of the people; and we had many proofs of its being easily adapted to all musical purposes, both in song and in recitative; besides being harmonious enough in common conversation. Its component parts, as far as our scanty acquaintance with it enabled us to judge, are not numerous; and in some of its rules, it agrees with other known languages. As, for instance, we could easily discern the several degrees of comparison, as used in the Latin; but none of the inflections of nouns and verbs. We were able to collect several hundreds of the words; and, amongst these, are terms that express numbers as far as a hundred thousand; beyond which they never would reckon. It is probable, indeed, that they are not able to go farther; for, after having got thus far, we observed that they commonly used a word which expresses an indefinite number. A short specimen, selected from the larger vocabulary, is here inserted, with the corresponding words, of the same signification as used at Otaheite, on the opposite column; which, while it will give, as we may say, ocular demonstration of their being dialects of the same language, will, at the same time, point out the particular letters by the insertion, omission, or alteration of which the variations of the two dialects from each other have been effected.