ture of Java have proved that the- Indian colonisation of Java
and the developement of thz Kawi, the sacried and cultivated
• dialect of that island, have furnished the medium by which
the languages of the Archipelago have derived the greater
portion of that infusion of Sanskrit which they disfiliy; He
observes that the Kawi forms mami, ego, and hami, nos*
appear to be connected with the Sanskrit pronouns mama and
me; but adds that he was able to trace in the whole system
of pronouns in the Malayo-Polynesian languages a deeply*
rooted affinity, which must be regarded as much more ancient
than the era at which words fully developed in their present
forms can be imagined to have been transferred' from the
Sanskrit into the Malayan idioms. That th r Sanskrit ladi
guage, or a language of which classical Sanskrit is but a more
embellished and a less primitive and simple form, should
really have entered into the elementary composition of the
idioms spoken by the remote islanders of the Pacific, is,‘& i t
should be fully established, a most remarkable and surprising
fact. Humboldt seems to have suspected it, though he has
expressed himself in a somewhat cautious and reserved manner
on this subject; but Professor Bopp, whose fame as an investigator
of languages is so universally celebrated* J a s not
hesitated in declaring his full conviction that the whole groupe
of Malayo-Polynesian languages, are entirely produced and
engendered from a disintegration of the Sanskrit, The
Sanskrit bears, as he thinks, to the Malayan the relation of
a mother-speech, while it is a sister-idiom when compared
with several members of the groupe of European languages.
As the Romanish dialects are formed from the ruins of the
Latin language, its organisation having been broken up and
destroyed, so in M. Bopp’s opinion the Malayo-Polynesian
has been built up from the fragments of the Sanskrit. There
is, however, this important difference, that whereas the
Romanish dialects have in most instances preserved at least
traces, and in some cases considerable portions of the old
Latin inflection, especially in the conjugation of verbs and
the declension of pronouns, every vestige of grammatical
structure has been lost in the languages of the Oceanic tribes.
The obvious result of such a state of things, as Bopp observes,
mu# be that the most unquestionable proofs óf derivation will
fie wanting -in th© comparison of the Malayan with the
Sanskrit, since grammAtical»affinityriis out of the question,«
and we can only look jto the evidence afforded by resemblance
oLwordss ;Thisv throws:open à wide field of conjectural
etymology. The analysis of the Indo-European languages has
heen reduced to fixed laws, and the investigation may be
regarded, within these fenit% as a matter of scientific research ;
but? ififis d iffiçult to;establish/ a similar conviction on the evidence
of * insulated • resemblaueesê.iis'uch as those which the
Polynösian languages are capable of affording. It is, indeed,
hard to imagine: so oompJete a diamémberaaent;iÉil! structure as
the • supposed case requires. I f we weróv to form a conjecture
on the I subject, it would be that the fragmentary state of
language was the original one, and that organisation and construction
were superadded in time. This would bring u s to
thé; n^ionv that A e i state o f -speèeh which appears in the
Malayam language is the primeval one, * and that of the Indo*
European idioms a secondary and improved form* but few
persons would adopt this alternative in the instance now unde®
review without much stronger ievidfencte than ? we now poss
sess. There are, however, striking features ofilikcness to the
Sanskrit in two classes of words pervading nearly the whald
System -of Malayo-Polynesian laBguages^naimely, the pronouns
and the numerals. Bopp-ihas su^ested ^that the
évidence afforded by the fiH'mer Ainay;bei explained away on
the supposition that certain organic causes.may have igiven
rise, to analogy in such words as express personal relation and
identity, such as ego, tu, is.- This appears to me, I confess,
extremely fanciful; and although it is true that personal
pronouns are decidedly analogous in ve#y many languages
which betray little other resemblance,* I think it is much
Thp following groupes # languages, though, entirely b^r-ia
prpnounsor numerals Ör in both a manifest and indeed unquestionable analogy
lo the pronouns of me Ïrido-European and Sanskrit class’:J p . The idioms of
è è ï£Shétóte ril^cÉs: 2. The Ihngusigesof Nödh Eastern'Ada|'hkiit to the
Ttirkiétfp ‘Mongolian, -and Tungusian: 3. TheCJôptié'!1 4. Sévëfàl Africa®
languages.: s ;