fWake. 



1890.] ■ 81 



The Asiatic Affinities of the Malay Language. 



By 0. Staniland Wake. 



(Read before the American Philosophical Society, April IS, 1890.) 



The existence of a connection between the lan-we of rh* Moi« 

 and «,„, of the Maiavs is s„ evident that a„ JX£1S££> fie S 



The Malays would seem to be first mentioned in the Chinese annals 

 winch refer to the existence, between the years 618 and 939 o our er of 



lllfT, T StatC J Pn ' bably ShaD ' iQ F " rther India > «•** oTLZl 



t>y of he Malays. The Shans, to whom the Siamese are closely a lie 

 were therefore preceded in that region by not only the Burmese who a e 

 probably re ated to the Naga tribes, but also the allied Chams and MaZ 

 whose affinu.es would be rather with the Mongolian peoples of India 

 now represented by the Kolarian tribes. This view is evidently supported 

 by the statement of M. Vivien de Saint-Martin that there is a general and 



I™ rela f ti T ° n f- liP bGtWeeU tllG "^—able -mificationsl? henon 

 Aryan race of India and Indo-China." The Rev. Dr. Mason and other 

 writers have found a similarity between the language of the M6n of 

 ": 1 the MUDdak0lS0f Chutia ^Pur, and D, Latham " t 

 SS y Tf 1S ^ aneCted WUh the M6n ' aud ther «fore also 



!n^o L " Uln vf ° Ind!a - He aSS ° CiateS With lhem ' as loos- 



ing to the same group, the language of Cambodia. Mr. Cust agrees in 



* tllowmg a relationship between Mon and Cambodian, but he clas the 



Malay language as a distinct family. Prof. A. H. Keane affirms, on 



oher hand, that the Khmer of Cambodia has nothing in common w 1 



t at th a M^ GXCe . pt ' ?• bal reSCmblances *">*«* the Talaing, and 



that the Malay is « unmixed in structure and fundamentally related to the 



of tW T ' We tGSt thGSe Stat6memS ^ retereace ^ the numeral 



of those languages, we find that the Khmer differs from Malay and 

 agrees with the Kolarian dialects. This is shown by the following 



PROC. AJIER. PHILOS. SOC. XXVIII. 132. K. PRINTED MAY 27, 1890. 



