296 Rev. Mr. Gursrarr’s Remarks on the Siamese Language. 
the unsociable character of the nation which speaks it, and not in the 
language itself Foreigners belonging to the neighbouring nations learn 
Siamese very easily, and speak it very idiomatically. The whole language 
is quite adapted for poetry: it possesses all the expressions for the most 
romantic subjects, and the words bear a great resemblance in sound to the 
ideas expressed ; but it is poor in variety of periodical constructions, which 
constitutes one of the greatest beauties of a language. Amongst the lan- 
guages of Southern Asia it stands very high, not only on account of its 
euphony, but far more for its copiousness. 
Compared with the Chinese in regard to sounds, it is richer, because it 
has more initials, diphthongs, and finals to form them. ‘Though the tones 
so essential to the monosyllabic languages are the same in number with the 
Chinese, they are more distinguishable. It is generally known that neither 
the sound nor tone is inherent in the Chinese character, but that they are 
read in different ways, whilst the significance of the character remains the 
same in all the countries where the Chinese way of writing is adopted. The 
Siamese marks the sounds as well as the tones with the letters, and not the least 
ambiguity remains as to the tones with which the words must be pronounced. 
The whole system of vowels is founded upon the rules of accentuation, so 
that every syllable is plainly marked. ‘This precision is made still more 
manifest by certain signs indicating the tone, which, however, are frequently 
omitted in writing. It has frequently been a matter of astonishment how 
the four hundred and ten different sounds of the Chinese language could, 
though varied by accentuation, become a medium of communication for so 
great a multitude of objects; at the same time, it is evident, that however 
nicely the tones may be marked, the names of many objects must have the 
same sounds and tones, and therefore necessarily be confounded. The 
greatest ingenuity, as well in the formation of the characters as of the 
sounds, has removed the first difficulty ; and confusion in the second case 
is obviated by using in the colloquial dialect, either synonyms or similar 
words together, where the single word might be mistaken for another. 
The Siamese being far richer in sounds, makes up the deficiencies alluded 
to by composition, so that few words remain ambiguous on account of their 
sounds. 
In point of etymology, the Siamese, like the Chinese and all the Indo- 
Chinese languages, is indeclinable. It admits of no difference of termination 
to express the gender or number, nor are there in the verb any alterations to 
