populations of the peninsula of Malaya.26 Wow, we again encounter,
even yet, this binary system among Australian populations.
The Dravidian idioms have, then, chased before them the Australian
tongues at a primordial epoch that now loses itself in the night
of time. At a later age, there appeared the Malayo-Polynesian languages,
which have coalesced in order to push still farther on to the
eastward, or at least to drive within a more circumscribed space,
these same Australian tongues. Then, after having implanted themselves
in those islands whence the Australian savages had been gradually
expulsed, the two groups, the Malay and the Polynesian,
declared war against each other; and now-a-days, in the Indian
Ocean, the Polynesian becomes more and more crowded out by the
Malay.
This fact brings us hack naturally to the problem of the origin of
that linguistic formation which we have designated by the name
“ Malayo-Polynesian.”
We have said that the Thibeto-Barman races had expelled from
India those black tribes with which they must have intermingled in
certain cantons. The Dravidian populations acted in the same way.
Several of the primitive tribes of Hindostán preserve still, in their
features and in their skin,-the impress of an infusion of Australian
blood. Has a mixture of another nature taken place in Polynesia
? Are the islanders of the Great Ocean born from the crossing
of some race coming from elsewhere? Several ethnologists, and
notably M. G u s t a v e d ’E i c h t h a l , 27 have admitted that the Polynesians
came from the east. Besides the resemblances of usage which these
ethnographers have perceived between divers American populations
(and especially those of the Cf-uarani family) and the Polynesians,
they have discovered, in their respective idioms, a considerable
number of words in common, nevertheless, such similitudes are
neither sufficiently general, nor sufficiently striking, to enable us
with certainly to identify the two races. There are Concordances
that, as regards words, may originate simply from migrations; or
which, as regards forms of syntax, result from parity of grammatical
development.
This does not prevent the employment of other facts (as yet historically
unproven, and fraught with tremendous physical obstacles) to
demonstrate the possibility of the emigration of some American populations
; hut upon this point languages do not yield us anything
decisive. More conclusive are the comparisons that M. d ’E i c h t h a l
36 Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, April—June, 1855, p. 180.
» Etudes sur l’Histoire Primitive des Races Océaniennes et Américainei, by the learned “ Se-
crétaire-adjoint de la Société Ethnologique.”
hasjnade between the tongues of those Foulahs, or Fellatahs, that
inhabit Senegambia, and some idioms of the Malayo-Polynesian
family. These analogies are too striking for us to refuse some recognition
of an identity of origines ; which, furthermore, resiles from
many other comparisons. The light complexion of the Foulahs, and
the superiority of their intellect, had at an early hour attracted the
notice of voyagers. We would admit, therefore, that the Malayo-
Polynesian race,—whilst it advanced towards the south-east of Asia,
and exterminated or vanquished the black races—had penetrated on
the opposite hand into Africa ; crossed itself with the négro populations;
and thus gave birth to the Foulah-trihes and their congener
peoples. At Madagascar, we re-encounter this same Malayo-Polynesian
race under the name of Ovas, or Sovas. This island appears like
the point of re-partition of the race that might he named “par excellence
” Oceanic, because it is by sea that it has invariably advanced,
[Hot to interrupt the order of the foregoing sketch of these Oceanic
languages, we have hitherto refrained from presenting another contemporaneous
view, that would, in many respects, modify the one
which, on the European continent, represents an opinion now current
among philologists concerning those families of tongues to
which the name “ Malayo-Polynesian” has been applied. If the high
authority of M r. J ohn C r a w e u r d 26 were to he passed over in Malayan
subjects, our argument would lack completeness ; at the same time
that the results of the learned author of the “ History of the Indian
Archipelago;” were they rigorously established, would merely operate
upon those we have set forth, so far as breaking up into several
distinct groups, — such as, Malgache, Malay, Papuan, Harfoorian,
Polynesian, Australian, Tasmanian, &c.,—the families of languages,
in this treatise, denominated by ourselves Malayo-Polynesian. A n d
it must be conceded concerning those tongues spoken by the perhaps-
indigenous black races of Malaysia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, that,
while, on the one hand, science possesses at present hut scanty information;
on the other, no man has devoted more patience and skill
to the analysis of such materials as we have, than M r . C r a w e u r d .
The following is a brief coup d’oeil over his researches.
“ A certain connexion, of more or less extent, is well ascertained
to exist between most of the languages which prevail from Madagascar
to Easter Island in the Pacific, and from Formosa, on the
coast of China, to Hew Zealand. It exists, then, over two hundred
degrees of longitude, and seventy of latitude, or over a fifth part of
the surface of the earth. * * * * * * The vast region of which I
A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language, London, in 8vo., 1852; yol. i.,
Dissertation and Grammar.