insight into Malayan He
remarks that those portions ;qf. the Malayan which are
derived from the sacred language of India . are . purely Sanskrit.
-If soy they cannot Mme. been introduced through the
medium of;., the modern dialects. In every instance* ’>he
observes, such words- adopted into the Malayan, approach
even-more nearly to the original Sanskrit than the odd forms
of the Pali. Many mythological stories are likewise extant
in the Malayan, and in these mythological charactersare iaw
trod need -which, as far as Dr. Leyden was ableito leafapido
not occur in any Pali composition.v It was; th^efoi^>^npt
through the intervention of Pali that words of Sanskrit origin
were introduced into the language of ; the Mala|l. r
similar grounds it might have been argued that neither the
Hindi of Guzerat, nor any dialect, spoken ■ in .the; Bekhan,
could have been the medium.*
It has been observed by M. de Humboldt, Who has surveyed'
this subject in that comprehensive manner which, is -characteristic
of. all his writings, that the numerous Sanskrit words
existing in the Malayan language are of a two-fold description.
The greater proportion of them, hke kàta, *&abda,< chwiterM,
a, legend, ndma, name, ütâm, the north, swdra, voice,
ares found only in the Malayan proper and^the Javan/f
out having passed into the; other- languages of this „stock.
Such words must have been adopted apparently into: the
dialects in which they are found , at ' axgomparatively late
period,—namely, subsequently t.o the dispersion of the insular
nations from a common centre.— Yet, as the same writer
further remarks, this period must itself have been a very
remote one, since the Sanskr it words adopted in the Malayan
language are pure and genuine, and free from those corruptions
which the modern Indian, dialects display. The second, class
of Sanskrit words are common to other dialects, and often to
many branches of the Malayan language. The wide diffusion
* Marsden’s Grammar of the Malayan Language, preface. Dr. Leyden
on the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations. Asiatic
Researches; wÊm f0:
: f The Bûgis ought-probably to be added to theHanguages to which-this
observation is applied. See Humboldt, Kawi-Sprache, Th. 3, s.;314.
of-such words through these; insular idioms must be attributed
sto • the influ^neei^of^ah’^older form of the Sanskrit,
^l^erv#;®f ' S^nskritfeh®^^^W!hi^, * or of that ancient lan-
guage which teeireised- a -similar influence over the idiom® of
the In dian^ntinent; " What is the'proportional ^number of
only be ascertained by a
careful analysis «sf all the dialects Pff'the Malayo-Polynesian
nations. The most important manifested in
the examination of the; numerals and pronouns of these
Humboldt gives as specimens; the wordsi aAo, Tonga,
155J aham, ;Sanskrit, egoj * meg®,,* :mica, Malecassian,
m i nyegha, Sanskrit,* a cloud; and the rM a fe c^
sian .malafa, Sanskrit, ^apfiaveiv. The? editor , of
Humbbldtl%ork, M. Buschman%'observes-oW; thii p ^ g a ^
S’f- his author, that it was the' intention of the latter5to have
ffeVOfed a- particular chapter to a eOi%iehetiSi^eWleW of^the
relations between the, Sanskrit and the IMalayo-Poly nesian
idioms. He did nof! live to complete ’'this design;' and
BU&ehmann, with a v iew of snpplying rin k)me’ degree1 the
deffefericy, has given in a note a few words which had occurred
to* him; “analogous to Sanskrit vocables, in theTagak, Male-
cassian^’ and proper Polynesian languages.f Some of them
will be seen in the5 following1 pages.
• Thfe researches of Humboldt into the languages and litera-
V M. BbpphaS explained #hat M^ de'Htiraboldt probably meant by the
expression;=¥or- Sanskritischs.Spracfee., vvhife&is but inexactly translated an
v##©r §an^krit«langyage.; He consolers thyaoguagejto wh jcb p?is designation
may be< applied as qlder than the Sanskrit ofr I n d i a a |) ^ s ^ He observes
that many of the forms which comparative grammar proves once to have
existed in this oteter Sanskrit, Appear to have bee^ idd'bfefoVeHhe age of
Mrar/eotd^sMiJni These forms are^orily^f&md* extaht* ifrth6 oldest
limguages of the Indo^Eufophan gioupei*;®S&hds thW-tottf ;%f tfee‘&eek
Tiru^a-Ts, defective in tu to p a ,,$ n d Stciou.ou, compared with the
Sanskrit datfui. Bopp says that when he speaks of Sanskrit as groundwork
!of the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages, which we shall- see that-
he considers it to be, he means not the classical Sanskrit, but an- older speech
of which the Sanskrit is a later form,- and of,wHiclt the Bldest Indo-European
idiomsmay he regarded as coeval and sister languages. > < •
f Humboldt, Kawi-Spraehe< Dritti.T-h.S;-(‘i28t