Tbegeae. — On Ceremonial Language. 595 



exactly as the English proved, to be of historical interest. 

 In Java three languages are spoken : the first is that of the 

 common people; this may be considered as a dialect of the 

 Malay, or perhaps the Malay may be considered a dialect of 

 Javanese. It has many words not used by the Malays ; but 

 even these perhaps may be considered as relics of the original 

 speech better preserved in Java than in Malacca or the out- 

 lying islands of the Archipelago, for Java was the centre of a 

 high civilization for several centuries. The great island abounds 

 in ruined cities, whose magnificent architecture is in ruins, and 

 sometimes overgrown with tropical verdure — the home of the 

 serpent and the wild beast. In those splendid temples were 

 preached the great Indian religions of Brahma and Buddha till 

 these went down before the all-conquering faith of Islam. The 

 vulgar tongue bears internal evidence of these great waves of 

 conquest, and the Sanscrit and Pali of India are mixed with 

 the Moslem Arabic in the vernacular of the Javanese. The 

 second language is the Kawi, the priestly tongue in which all 

 documents and poetry are written ; it is a mixture of Javanese 

 and Sanscrit. The third language is the Basa-Krama, w T ords 

 meaning "polite " (in contradistinction to the ngoko, or verna- 

 cular), but both are from Sanscrit, being krama, "order," and 

 bhasa, "language." It appears to be a thoroughly made-up 

 dialect, formed by taking words not in common use and 

 engrafting foreign words so as to avoid familiar native expres- 

 sions. Some of these are taken from Malay or Sundanese, 

 some from Sanscrit, others by corrupting the words of the 

 vernacular. But, despite of research, there is not the slightest 

 internal proof that the ceremonial language is older than the 

 vernacular : in fact, the reverse is the case. It is evident that 

 the Sanscrit and Arabic are late arrivals embroidered on to the 

 simple web of the native speech, just as Norman French was 

 worked over Saxon English. Precisely, so far as we can 

 learn, was this the case also in Bali and the other islands. 

 The ceremonial languages are recent growths, products of 

 civilization, probably due to conquest, or else from the accept- 

 ance of overwhelmingly dominant religions. 



If we can show something of the kind in Samoa it will 

 prove of great historical interest. If we can show that the 

 Samoan ceremonial language consists even in part of foreign 

 words, or of words not found in common use anywhere in 

 Polynesia, we shall have made a distinct advance. For my 

 own part, I regret to say that I can do no such thing — that I 

 do not perceive any indication whatever showing conquest or 

 religious supremacy by a foreign power, and that therefore the 

 inquiry is historically void. But it is not scientifically void 

 if we can show the negative side, and prove that in this direc- 

 tion at least search is useless. 



