recalls, in certain respects, that of the Dravidian tongues) seems,
by the way, to have undergone, in the course of time, modifications
sufficiently deep.
The Malgache, or Malagasy, Spoken at the island of Madagascar,
constitutes, as it were, a link between the Malayo-Polynesian idioms
and those of Africa. Mr. J. E . L ogan, in an excellent series of labors
on this tongue,25 makes it seen how several traits in common existed
between the Malgache and those tongues of the great Souahilee-
Congo family, which he terms Zimbian. The same system of sounds.
One finds again in them that euphony signalized in the idioms of
Central Africa, associated with those double letters, mp, md, nh, nd,
nj, tr, dr, ndr, nr, ts, nts, is, that also characterize the languages
of Africa. Prefixes serve equally in them to represent the categorical
forms of a word. Finally, that which is still more characteristic, the
Malgache does not distinguish genders any more than do the African
idioms; and, like the vast Souahilee-Congo group, it carries with it
the generical distinction, according as beings are animate, rational,
or inanimate, irrational. But, side by side with these striking analogies,
there exist fundamental differences. The Malgache-vocabu-
lary is African in no manner whatever, although it may have imbibed
some words of idioms from the coast of Africa: it might approach
rather towards the Hamitic vocabulary; but its pronouns are peculiar
to itself. It possesses quite an especial and really characteristic power
for combining formative prefixes; and many traits attach it to those
tongues of the Soodan which have surprised philologers by their
analogies with Polynesian languages.
It is, therefore, evident that the Malgache represents to us a mixture
of idioms; or, to speak more exactly, the result of influences
exerted upon a Polynesian idiom by African languages, and, with
some plausibility likewise, by those of the Hamitic class. This commingling
betrays itself equally in the population of Madagascar.
Evidently in this island, to judge by the pervading type of its inhar
bitants, there has been an infusion of black blood into the insular,
or reciprocally. In general, the races that find themselves spread
over the zone occupied by the families of Malayo-Polynesian languages
do not at all present homogeneity; and one must admit that
they descend from innumerable crossings. Nevertheless, the fact—if
fact it he, after the analyses of C rawfurd, indicated farther on— of a
(fond) substratum of words in common, and of a grammar reposing
upon the same bases, proves that one and the same race has exercised
its influence over all these populations.
* The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, Singapore, — Supplementary
Where must one go and seek for the cradle of this race ? Comparative
philology places us upon a trail towards its discovery.
There exists in the trans-Gangetic peninsula an “ ensemble” of languages
appertaining to the same family as the Chinese; by attaching
itself on the one hand to the Thibetan, and on the other to the
Siamese. These tongues have been designated by the name “monosyllabic,”
because the primitive monosyllabism is perceived in them
in all its original simplicity. In monosyllabic languages, there yet
exist only simple words rendered through one single emission of the
voice. These words are, at one and the same time, both substantives
and verbs: they express the notion, the idea, independently of the
word; and it is the modus through which this word becomes placed
in relationship with other words that indicates its categorical sense in
a sentence. The Chinese tongue-L above all under its ancient or
archaic form — is the purest type of this monosyllabism. It corresponds
in this manner to the older period which had preceded that
of agglutination.
Every Chinese word—otherwise said, each syllable—is composed
of its initial and of its final sound. The initial sound is one of the
136 Chinese consonants; the final sound is a vowel that never
tolerates other than a nasal consonant, in which it often terminates,
or else a second vowel. What characterizes the Chinese, as well as
the other languages of the same family, is the accent that manifests
itself by a sort of singing intonation; which varies by four different
ways in the Chinese, reduces itself to two in the Barman, and ends
by effacing itself in the Thibetan. The presence of this accent
destroys all harmony, and opposes itself to the “ liaison” of words
amongst themselves; because, the minutest change in the tone of a
word would give birth to another word. In order that speech should
remain intelligible, it is imperative that the pronunciation of a given
word must be invariable. Hence the absence of what philologists
call “phonology” in the Chinese family. Albeit, in the vernacular
Siamese, already an inclination manifests itself to lay stress upon,
or rather to drawl out, the last word in a compound expression.
These compounded expressions abound in Chinese; the words that
enter into them give birth, in reality, through their assemblage, to a
new word; because the sense of this expression has often no resemblance
whatsoever, almost no relationship, to that of the two or
three words out of which it is formed.
The .drawling upon the second syllable that takes place in the
Siamese is the point of departure from monosyllabism, which already
s ows itself still more in the Oambodjian. The Barman corresponds
to the passage of monosyllabic tongues, wherein the sounds are not