properly so termed personal pronoun of the Î,third person çor-
responding to lie, she, it, and use demonstratives instead of
it ; but the terminations of verbs in the third person singular
shew plainly what the personal pronoun must have been.
This form, ends in at, et, ti, See. ; and we ; find that the
pronoun is thus suffixed in general, and is also an article.
The same phenomenon appears, according to M. Bopp, in
many of the Malayo-Polynesian languages : te, ho, &e. are
used both as articles and as suffix pronouns connected yvith
verbs-denoting the third person.
The Sanskrit relative y a has some analogies,, according to
Bopp, in the insular languages. Y an is the definite article,
and is used for a relative pronoun in Malay, In Tagala we
find yaon, ille, and in Bugis yatu ; îtu, Malay ; ito, Tagala,
probably compounded of ya and to. With the Sanskrit de-j
monstrative esa or eska, the Maleoassian isa corresponds. |
These instances of rësemblance which I have cited in the
pronouns and numerals of the Sanskrit and the Malayo-Pt^y-
nesian languages are certainly remarkable. The resemblances
iji the ordinary vocabularies of the two clashes of languages
are not so frequent as might be inferred from what has been
sàidl M. Bopp' has, however, jdhewn that $. considerable
number of analogies may be found in the roots of verbs, The
following instances of resemblance in nouns were seisctpd by
M. Buschmann, and were given i n p n e o f •his/notea to
Humboldt’s work on the Kawi-Sprache.#
Hina, Sansk. r
Hina, Jav. and Mai., small, mean. Inof Haw. ; kino,
N. Z. bad.
Warn, water.
Wârih, in the Kawi ; wax, by omission of r, Tahiti, K. Z.,
Haw.; wet, Tong; uwae, Bugis.
Chara, or Ctiâra, or and achàrq,; rule,
j practice, rite.
Chàra,*Mal. ; Tsara, Malecass. ; Mitsâra, Maleeass.
* Kawi-Sprache, 3 Th., S. 228.
The several senses of the Sanskrit word are recognised in
various derivations, in Malayan, Malecassian, and Javan.
Muhham face, wfotrumv,
Muka, Mai. Kawi, same sense. Mukha, Tagala.
Kshaya destruction; acsaya, to destroy, Tagala.
SMrna to destroy, waste; sirna, Kawi; sira,
Tagala.
One or two more words of this description have been given
by Buschmann, who draws the conclusion that a few Sanskrit
words can be recognised, and with a tolerable degree of certainty,
in the languages of the Malayan nations. The most
remarkable are those indicating affinity with the Oceanic
Polynesians.
It sbems, oh the consideration of all that has been stated,
very difficult to form a decided opinion on this subject. I
cannot, and I think few of my readers will be inclined to go
with Professor Bopp so far as his ultimate inference, that
the Malayo-Polynesian language is merely a derivative of
th&'Sanskrit, or a genuine descendant of that idiom. If I
might venthre to offer an. opinion, it would be that theresetm
blance traced between the Sanskrit and the Malayo-Polynesian
is by no means such as to indicate a family relation
ot Siammverwandtschaft. It is even very much more remote
than the connection between the Indo-European and the
Syro-Arabian languages. Yet the phenomena can hardly be
attributed'; to accidental coincidence, and ifii not, the only
alternative is to infer, or at least strongly to suspect* that they
are the‘result of some very ancient and primeval derivation
of the two families of nations from a common stock. The
Tahitians and the Celts or Letts cannot have obtained anything
that they may have had in common fromxintercourse,
either with each other or with any intermediate term of communication.
If they have, any thing in common ih the fundamental
and essential parts of their respective languages, it
must have been preserved by both from the very infancy of
nations, perhaps almost from the first era of the developement
of human speech.
vo l. j v. D