siderable island of Sambawa there are but five
tongues; in the civilized portion of Celebes, not
more than four; in the great island of Sumatra,
not above six ; and in Java but two.
Abundant proof of the existence of a distinct
language in each tribe, may be adduced. The
languages are of course original and unmixed, in
proportion as circumstances have kept the tribes
distinct. Colour, complexion, and physical configuration,
have naturally kept the negro tribes distinct
from the brown-coloured races, and their languages
are, therefore, nearly in a state of pristine
originality. The languages spoken by the negro
races which inhabit the mountains of the Malayan
Archipelago, hardly contain a word in common
with the languages of the brown-coloured civilized
races, and differ so much from those of each other,
that Malayan interpreters must be employed to
conduct the petty intercourse which now and then
takes place between them. The languages of
Tambora, Temati, Ceram, and Saparua, have
hardly a word of the more improved dialects of the
Archipelago, and differ, just as widely, from the
languages of the negroes at the other extremity of
the Archipelago. These are the' languages of
some of the least improved tribes with which we
are acquainted.
The evidence of an • original language with
every primitive horde, is II even to be discovered
still, in the more improved and mixed dialects.
This is most remarkable in the class of words connected
with the metaphysical structure of language,
and which, from their very nature, did not admit
of being displaced by foreign words, such as the
substantive and auxiliary verbs; the prepositions
representing the most abstract of the relations of
cases; the termination representing a possessive
case, and the inseparable particles representing a
passive and a transitive signification of the verb; and,
perhaps, above all, the common class of particles. *
The merit of distinctly pointing out the existence
of a great Polynesian language, as pervading the
Indian Archipelago, belongs to Mr Marsden; of all
the writers who, have treated of the literature, history,
or manners of the Archipelago, the most laborious,
accurate, able, and original; and previous
to whose writings we possessed neither correct nor
philosophical accounts of these singular countries, t
* “ The particles of every language shall teach them whither
tO' direct and where to stop their inquiries, for wherever
the evident meaning and origin of the p irUclesof any language
can he found, there is the certain source of the whole.”
Diversions of Purley, Vol. I. p. 147,
•)■ The learned Reland points out the extraordinary connection
between the Malay, the other languages of the' Archipelago,
and the Madagascar, but he draws no important or interesting
conclusion from this singular fact Diss. XL De Lin.
guis Insularum Orientalium.
VOL. II. p