one race,, speaking dialectsof,the. same.language. g Qf tbps©
I have rather a long vocabulary, viz. of the Kissa‘diaje^tf(,with
which I have taken gteat pains,. a.s I wish to p re fec tit as a
specimen of this language),« and smaller comparative vocabularies
of about twenty#other„diaiectg, spoken here and on the
north of Australia. . This race is evidently pure. Polynesian,
resembling very closely, «.the brown race of the^^puth Sea
Islands in customs, language, and personal appearance. I
think you will also be able to trace a very considerable.resemr-
blance to the people of Pulp Neas on the west.copst of Symar
tra, and to the Polynesians- of Madagascar ,, add* upon ttjje
whol%- it has struck me that these Timorians exhibit
Bof the Polynesian race when it first established itself^in the
Indian Archipelago, and before it became intermixed with
the Hindus and Arabians, as is the case in the Malay peninsula
and some of the western islands'of the Arc.hipelng.Qi. gj
“ As far, as my observations extejod,. one general
prevails among -the aboriginal tribes of the gpoupp pf islands
extending from Savu in the west to the Ki islands in. the east,
including Rotti, Timor, the Serwatty Islands, and Tiinor Laut.
It also extends to at least a portipn of_ Sumbawa, or Sandaj£
wood Island. A great variety of dialects exists, but I met with
none that did not evidently belong to the same great family.
There are, however, a few small tribes-scattered about the
interior of Timor, and of which I only met with some individual
specimens, whose dialects may form an exception to. this
general rule. I do not here include the Arru Islands, for
there, I have no doubt, a considerable mixture of Papuaif
will be found, and in the southern part of this groupe I believe
the basis of the language to be Papuan.
As I could not go very deeply into all the dialects that
I met with, I selected for examination one of the two spoken
in the island of Kissa, chiefly from my having been a more
frequent visitor to that island than to the others, and from
the circumstance of my having had a very intelligent native
of Kissa in my service during several years, which enabled
me to become more familiar with it than with the others.
With respect to this dialect, I have no doubt that the basis is
Polynesian. A few apparently Papuan words may possibly
have crept in,-and I have certainly met with many that are
common to the Timórians to- the natives of the west and
nojth coasts of New Guinea, but these have been almost
invariably pure Polynesian, and had probably been adopted
by the Papüas from the people of the Moluccas and Celebes,
who have-had intercourse with them for centuries.
I In point oï sound, the Kissa dialect certainly differs from
Some of the snaoöthér dialects of the Polynesians, which at
first led me to believe that I had stumbled upon a new language
i but I soon found that this peculiarity was entirely
otving to a guttural (h) having been substituted for the letter
‘ s /—‘ k # for t,’ and ‘ w ’ for 4 b/* The nasal ‘ n g ’
is also generally rejected. Thpjs^ the Bughis * taseb
becomes ‘ kahei ’ (the sea). . The Bughis language, indeed,
is, of all those of _the Indian Archipelago with which I am
at all acquainted, the one that móst Closely resembles this
Kissa dialect. I will give a few Specimens of the substitution
of words which I have mentioned above.
Bughis, Kissa.
b ah tu . wahku stone
beret wetek heavy
ati akin * heart
mati maki - dead
ata ahka slave
übi Ü\yi yam
bülü wülü r feather
SÜSÖ hühü milk
keres kereb hard
The Polynesian nusa, land or island, becomes in the Kissa
dialect noM and noha. Hence possibly whenua, fenua,
henna, &c. . . . . • . j ,
“ I could multiply instances, but I dare say you will
consider these as sufficient.
« Although many, perhaps the greater, number, of the
words contained in this language appear to end in a consonant,
and are pronounced so if spoken singly, yet in conver-
* These are very remarkable coincidences with the^ mutation of consonants^
of which t have pointed out many examples in European and Asiatic families
of languages.
TOL. V. H