the vocabularies of which we had with us; but a closer examination taught us that they spoke a dialect of the same tongue. A fact which may tend to prove this, and which confirms the opinion of the English respecting the origin of these people, is, that a young Manillese servant, who was born in the province of Tagayan, on the north of Manilla, understood and interpreted to us most of their words. Now it is known that the Tagayan, Talgal, and all the dialects of the Philippine Islands in general, are derived from the Malay; and this language, more widely spread than those of the Greeks and Romans were, is common to the numerous tribes that inhabit the islands of the South Sea. To me it appears demonstrated, that these different nations are derived from Malay colonies who conquered these islands at very remote periods; and perhaps even the Chinese and Egyptians, whose antiquity is so much vaunted, are moderns compared to these."* The following is a specimen of the affinity sub "La Perouse's Voyage," chap. xxv. sisting between the Polynesian dialects and those of the Indian Archipelago : *In the Treatise to which I have already adverted, Mr. Marsden, the highly intelligent and learned author of the "History of Pitu (Javanese). Wolo (Javanese). There is, therefore, reason to believe that the South Sea Islanders, and the various tribes of Malays inhabiting the islands of the Indian Archipelago, are of kindred origin, and that the languages of all these islanders are merely dialects of the same ancient and primitive tongue. The Polynesian branches of that ancient language doubtless bear a closer resemblance to each other than to the dialects of the Indian Archipelago; but this is just what might have been expected, from the comparative isolation of the South Sea Islands on the one hand, and from the vicinity of the Indian Archipelago to the vast continent of Asia on the other.* Sumatra," has just published a comparative vocabulary of the dialects of Polynesia and of the Indian Archipelago. The vocabulary extends to thirty-four words-all of them the names of the commonest objects; and the numerous coincidences it exhibits in the languages of tribes situated at vast distances from each other are equally striking and instructive. *Besides the Malayan," observes the intelligent author of the History of Sumatra, "there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra, which, however, have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but also to that general language which is found to prevail in and to be indigenous to all the islands of the eastern sea, from Madagascar to the remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries, comprehending a wider extent than the Roman or The modern language of the Malays abounds in Arabic words, introduced along with the Mahometan delusion by the Moors of the Mogul empire. It abounds also in Sanscrit vocables-the evidences and remains of the ancient intercourse of the nation with the Hindoos of Western India. The former or more recent of these foreign admixtures, compared with the rest of the language, presents the appearance of a number of quartz pebbles embedded in a sheet of ice—their edges rough and broken, and their general aspect exhibiting nothing in common with the homogeneous mass into which they have been frozen. The result of the latter or more ancient of these admixtures, in consequence of the more liquid character of the Sanscrit language, resembles a compound fluid, homogeneous in appearance, but dif any other tongue has yet boasted. In different places it has been more or less mixed and corrupted, but between the most dissimilar branches an evident sameness of many radical words is apparent; and in some very distant from each other in point of situation, as, for instance, the Philippines and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observable in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom."-History of Sumatra, page 200. fering essentially, however, from each of the simple ingredients of which it is composed. But the skeleton of the language-its bones and sinews, so to speak,-consists of the ancient Malayan or Polynesian tongue. The comparatively consonantal character of the Arabic admixture has introduced into the language a tendency to discard the final vowels of the ancient Polynesian; the polysyllabic character of the Sanscrit infusion has divested it in great measure of its primitive monosyllabic form. But, in getting beyond the influence of these foreign admixtures from the westward, we find the modern language of the Archipelago gradually assimilating to those of Polynesia Proper: for, "in this dialect," observes Mr. Marsden, in reference to the language spoken in the island of Celebes, which is situated at the eastern extremity of the Archipelago, "we observe one feature that assimilates it to the languages of Further Polynesia, the words being invariably made to terminate with a vowel.”* "Marsden's Miscellaneous Works," p. 46. B |