( 155 ) 



Oh the Malayan and Polynesian Languages and Faces. By 

 John Ckawfurd, Esq., F.R.S.L., Conductor of the Em- 

 bassy to Siam. Communicated by the Ethnological So- 

 ciety for Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.* 



Distinct and unequivocal traces of a Malayanf language 

 have been found from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from 

 Formosa to New Zealand, over 70 degrees of latitude, and 

 200 of longitude. 



To account for this remarkable dissemination of a lan- 

 guage, singular for its extent, among a people so rude, it has 

 been imagined that all the ti'ibes within the wide bounds re- 

 ferred to constitute, witli the exception, however, of the 

 Papuas or Negroes, one and the same race, and that the 

 many tongues now known to be spoken by them, were, origi- 

 nally, one language, broken down, by time and dispersion, 

 into many dialects. This is the theory adopted by Mr Mars- 

 den, Sir Stamford Raffles, and the Baron William Humboldt, 

 as well as by many French and German writers, but I be- 

 lieve it to be wholly destitute of foundation. 



A sketch of the different groups of nations within the range 

 I have alluded to, will shew, that whether their languages be 

 of one stock or not, the men themselves belong physica,lly to 

 distinct races. They may, I think, be divided into three 

 groups — men of brown complexion, with lank hair; men of 

 sooty complexion, with woolly hair ; and men of brown com- 

 plexion, with frizzled hair. Each of these, again, consists of 

 several subdivisions. 



Beginning with the first group, the most remai-kable race 

 in it is what may be called the Malay. The prevailing 

 complexion is here a light brown, with a yellow tinge ; the 

 hair is lank, long, coarse, abundant on the head, and defec- 

 tive on every other part of the body; the nose is short 

 and small, but never flat ; the mouth is large ; the lips thin ; 

 the cheek-bones high. The person is squat, and the average 

 stature does not exceed 5 feet 3 or 4 inches. 



* Head bsfore the Ethnological Suction of British Association, Juno 18.t7. 

 t I use this word as a common term for all that belongs to the Archiiielago. 



