and in their phonetic character, to admit of our arranging them into classes, of which
there are, perhaps, three. The first class will comprise the languages from Sumatra
to Borneo, and Lomboc eastward; the second, those from Celebes to the Moluccas
inclusive, and the third, those of the Philippine Archipelago. This arrangement, of
course, refers only to the languages of the nations and tribes of the Malayan race, for
of the Negritos and Papuan negros we know far too little to enable us to attempt a
classification. But if we extend our enquiry to the utmost hounds to which words of
the Malayan languages extend, we must add two more classes, one for the Polynesian
languages, but not including the negro tongues of the Pacific, and one for the language
of Madagascar. Between these classes, there are considerable differences in grammatical
structure, but the widest difference relates to their phonetic character. In
the first class the range of consonants extends to nineteen and the vowels to six,
whereas in the second, the consonants are but sixteen and the vowels but five. The
phonetic character of the second or Celebesian class of languages distinguishes it remarkably
from the first. This character is accompanied by much commutation of consonants
and much elision. No word or syllable can end in a consonant, saving the nasal ng.
The consequence of this peculiarity is that words of the first class of languages, as
well as foreign ones, when adopted, become so altered as not to he easily recognised.
Thus, mawar, a rose, in Malay, is changed into mawara; ratus, hundred, into ra tu ; laksa,
ten thousand, into lasa; and bintang, a star, into witoeng. The grammatical structure
of the languages of the second class is equally simple with that of the first, but the
prepositions used in the formation of cases, and the auxiliaries employed in that of
the tenses and moods of verbs, are wholly different. The phonetic character and
grammatical structure of the third class of languages, the Philippine, differ most
materially from those of the two first classes. I t has five vowels and sixteen consonants,
but among the consonants it has two sounds, which are absent in the first and second
class while it wants no fewer than seven of those of the first class. In the two first
classes no two consonants come together without the intervention of a vowel, unless
one of them be a liquid or a nasal. No such rule exists in the Philippine languages,
and the consequence is that many combinations of sound are found in them, which are
never heard from the mouths of those that speak the languages of the two first classes.
Another distinction in the pronunciation of the Philippine tongues consists in the
frequent occurrence of an aspirate at the beginning of words and syllables, but never
at their termination, which is the very reverse of what obtains m the languages of the
two first classes. Accent in the languages of the two first classes is a very simple
matter. In bi-syllabic and tri-syllabic words it is, with rare exceptions, on the
nenultimate, and in polysyllables there are two accents, one on the first syllable and
one on the penultimate. On the contrary, accent in the Philippine tongues is a very
complex matter. Some of the Spanish writers, on Philippine grammar, make them
onlv two. while others run them up to seven, the more usual estimate being .our.
The accent in these cases, however, includes quantity. Two examples may be given.
The word baga, with what is called the long penultimate, signifies “ a live coal, and
with the short penultimate, “ chance." Sala, with the long penultimate, means sin,
and with the short, I desirous” or “ anxious.” The words now given are, in their first
meanings, Malay or Javanese, that is, belong to the first class of languages ; and
to suit them to the genius of Philippine pronunciation, they have been changed from
barak and salah to what we find them, by eliding the final aspirate, in both words, and
substituting a g for an r, the last of these being a letter which does not exist m the
Philippine lamniages. The grammatical structure of the Philippine languages,
although essentially simple, differs very materially from that of the two first classes
of languages. Relation is expressed, not by prepositions, but by articles and of
these there are two kinds, one for proper names and one for appellatives. A plural,
instead of being formed, as in the first and second class of languages, by an adjective
following the noun, is formed by prefixing to it a particle appropriated to this
particular use. The formation of the personal pronouns in the Philippine languages
ia very remarkable. They alone have cases expressed by inflexions, and they
have no fewer than three plurals. The verb is of considerable complexity. Time
is expressed by inseparable particles affixed to the root, and not by auxiliaries,
_ moods by auxiliaries and in several different manners, according to the conjugations,
of which there are three, instead of one, as in the first and second class of languages,
and this, too, besides compound ones, which are numerous. There are no means of
distinguishing transitive and intransitive verhs, as in the two first classes.
The Polynesian class of languages is broadly distinguished from those now
described, both in phonetic character and grammatical structure. The consonants,
according to dialects, run from seven to ten only, and when they rise to fifteen t is
from an intermixture of the languages of the negro tribes, as in the caseof thelonga
and Piii tongues. Another peculiarity is the paucity of liquids. Ihe Maori and
Tonga have only two; the Tahiti and Sandwich Island but one each and the Mar-
„uesa none at all The scarcity of liquids is compensated for, not by the variety, for
there are but five, but by the frequency of vowels. No two consonants can occur m
the same syllabffi, and every word must terminate m a vowel The accent differs
from that in the previous classes, for it may be on the first, the last, or the pemilti-
mate and a polysyllabic word may have as many as three different accents. The
grammatical structure resembles that of the Malayan languages, in being simple, but
the simplicity is of a different character. The noun has a definite and an indefinite
article. The relations of nouns are expressed by prepositions, a plural by a particle
placed before the noun, gender by adjectives, two for man and two for the lower
oTiimalg In all these cases, the particles employed differ wholly from those of the
previous classes. The formation of the personal pronouns is the most singular part of
Polynesian grammar. These have each a singular, and no fewer than four plurals.
Each pronoun has three different forms of a genitive case, the other- cases being
formed as in the noun by prepositions. The verb is also sufficiently distinguished
f r o m that of the previous classes. ,, ,
The Malaga.»!, or language of Madagascar, is still more distinct than even the Polynesian,
from those of the three first cases. Instead of having only from seven to ten
consonants, like the Polynesian, or nineteen, like the Malay and Javanese, or sixteen,
like the Philippine languages, it has twenty-one. I t wants five of the Malay and
Javanese system, but has six which do not belong to it. I t has only two liquids,
and of these, one only, r, coalesces with another consonant, or is a semi-vowel, and
even this, only with the letters d and f. With this exception, no consonant can follow
another in a word or syllable without the intervention of a.vowel, unless one of them
be a nasal. Words and syllables frequently begin with an aspirate, but never end
with one, a rule the reverse of that which obtains in Malay and Javanese. As to
grammatical form, the Malagasi has one article, the definite. Relation is expressed by
prepositions, and gender and number by adjectives, the words employed being wholly
different from those used in the four first classes. The verb is the most complex part
of the grammar. There are no fewer than 450 roots or radical words, from which
are formed thirteen conjugations, some of the derivate formations running to -the
cumbrous length of eight syllables.
Written language is of immemorial antiquity in the Indian Islands, and in every case
the characters are phonetic, and not emblematical; for of the latter, no trace has
been discovered. There are, in all, no fewer than seven current native alphabets in
the two archipelagos, namely, four in Sumatra, one in Java, which extends to Bali,
Lomboc, and Palembang in Sumatra, one in Celebes, which extends to all the more
cultivated languages of that island, and to those of some islands near it, as Boeton and
Sumbawa, and one in Luzon, which is used by some of the more advanced nations of
that island, and some of the other Philippines. But besides these current alphabets
there are, at least, four obsolete ones, one in the country of the Sundas, in Java, one
in Celebes, one in Sumbawa, and one in the Philippines, that of the Bisaya nation, so
that, in all, there appear to have been invented among the rude tribes of the Indian
Islands, no fewer than eleven different systems of phonetic writing, whereas Western
Europe with its energetic races, Italy excepted, invented none at all. All these alphabets
have the appearance, to judge by the form of their letters, of having been separate
and independent inventions,-—not borrowed by one tribe from another, but seemingly
invented in the spots where we now find them. Neither have they the appearance of
having been borrowed from any foreign source. Notwithstanding the disparity in the
form of the characters, all the insular alphabets are framed on the same principle,
with, at the same time, a wide difference in the manner in which that principle has been
carried out. In all of them the writing is from left to right, as with Europeans, and in
all of them the consonants only are considered as substantive letters, with the single
exception of the vowel a, as an initial, the other vowels being looked on as merely
supplemental characters, or, as the Malays call them, the “ armour,” and the Javanese,
“ the clothing” of the consonants. Every consonant has in it the inherent vowel, as,
annexed, or in fact is a syllable, when there is no orthographic mark eliding it. The
letters of the Sumatran alphabets consist simply of one or more straight strokes or
lines standing vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, and those of the alphabet of
Celebes, segments of circles, generally running in a horizontal direction. Those of the
Javanese alphabet alone are regularly and symmetrically formed. This and the