frequently four or five; but for abstract words, particularly
such as relate to the operations of the mind,
and which are familiar in the most barbarous ages
of European languages, the deficiency of every one
of the Polynesian languages is pitiable. For mind
We have nothing but the metaphorical sense of the
word heart I for understanding we are driven to
the Sanskrit or Arabic ; for tnemory we have nothing
but the verb to remember, used substantively
i for friendship we fly again to the Arabic; for
dissimulation, scholars have got up an awkward
translation, meaning a heart awry ; for merit there
is no word at all; for modesty none but the one that
expresses shame; for integrity no expression whatever
; for right, expressing either just claim, or expressing
property, none; for reason none ; for argument
none. * Whenever we press the languages
of the oriental islands into our service on such occasions,
we offer violence to their genius. The people
are strangers to the modes of expression in
which such words are necessary, and when foisted
into their language, the result is ambiguity or nonsense.
The East-Insular languages, then, may justly
be characterized as not copious, but wordy.
There are no less than five written characters
known among the nations of the Indian islands,
* Not one of the East-Insular languages distinguishes between
air at rest and air in motion; there Is, in faet, no native
term for wind.
without mentioning the Roman or Arabic characters,
the latter of which is of universal use among
the nations which speak the Malay language; the
Tagala of the Philippines, and the obsolete character
of the Sundas of Java. These five characters
are in form as distinct, and in character
as unlike, as can well be supposed in alphabets
which represent languages so similar in sound
and formation ; and I see no rational ground for
concluding that they are from one origin. However
we may pretend to refine on the difficulties of
inventing alphabets, there is one fact which we
cannot keep out of sight, that all alphabets whatever
have been inventions of rude and barbarous
ages ; of ages so remote, that -in all parts of the
world they are beyond the reach of historical record.
There seems no cause to exclude the barbarians
of the Indian islands from the list of those
who invented alphabets. Alphabets, like other
great inventions, were, no doubt, the discoveries of
highly gifted geniuses, who anticipated their time
and nation by many ages ; and it would be unfair
to attempt to trace their invention by referring to
the general state of mind in the barbarous nations
which possess them. The great number of these
alphabets, while no less than three of them exist on
one island, has been looked upon as a singular and
puzzling fact; but it appears rather a proof of the imperfect
intercourse which existed in early times between
the different tribes or nations of the samecoun