Takuu Grammar and Dictionary: A Polynesian Language of the South Pacific

Readers of this review should be aware of my prejudices and shortcomings as a reviewer. When Richard Moyle, the author of this work, was planning his dictionary of Takuu, he thoughtfully contacted me for permission to use some features of a dictionary that I compiled for the Sikaiana language, a Polynesian language closely related to Takuu.1 I wrote it about 25 years ago, but I have retained some fluency in the language. Takuu has many cognates with Sikaiana and even after being away from the Sikaiana language for over 20 years, I can understand much of the Takuu language presented in this dictionary. I found Moyle’s dictionary to be an excellent resource not only about the Takuu language but also about Takuu culture. Moreover for the people themselves, the dictionary is a heritage resource, recording many cultural practices that are likely to change in coming years. Moyle’s dictionary is developed from 3300 headwords that he compiled from over 20 months of ethnographic research between 1994 and 2007, and 3600 headwords that were compiled by Irwin (Jay) Howard. Moyle worked on and combined these compilations with a research assistant, Tekaso Laroteone. The dictionary was compiled at the request of the Takuu people. Although Moyle does not discuss the reasons for this request, my own experience on Sikaiana is that many younger people are learning Pijin/Tok Pisin and English rather than their home language, and there is fear that the home language will be eroded and perhaps lost in the future. The Takuu dictionary includes a 60 page grammar that provides a basic and useful introduction to the language. There are 291 pages of comprehensive entries. They include a grammatical definition, glosses, derivations, idioms, sentence examples, references to related terms, and explanatory notes about the cultural meanings and contexts for terms: ritual terms, for example, often include notes about ritual activities. At the end, there is an extensive finder list of English terms with Takuu equivalents. The book comes with a CD that includes all the entries and also links to photos and videos that illustrate some of the terms (an innovative feature). The format for the presentation of entries is clear and readable. The entries are thorough and often interesting from both a linguistic and cultural perspective. The book itself is well manufactured with good covers and pages, and the CD fits securely into a nob on the inside of the back cover. Takuu is one of a group of islands referred to as ‘Polynesian outliers’, a group of islands located outside the geographic regions associated with primary Polynesian settlements. Although anthropologists must always be careful about essentializing cultural