186 Mr Crawfurd on the 



Among the Malayan words most generally diffused, and 

 considered to be of the class representing the most simple 

 and primitive ideas, are the terms for " man," " bird," 

 " fish," &c. ; but these are obviously genei'al or abstract 

 terms, and necessarily could not have been among the first 

 invented. Tlie Australians, according to Mr Eyre, have no 

 such terms.* It may be conjectui*ed, indeed, that the want 

 of such terms in the ruder languages both of the Archipelago 

 and Pacific, is one cause of the frequent occurrence of such 

 words from the Malayan as kayn, " tree" or " timber ;" buah, 

 " fruit;" bunah, "flower ;" and maniik, " a bird." 



The very first word of Mr Marsden's list, " man," occurs 

 in its Malay form of orah only in two other languages of the 

 Archipelago, the Madura and Achin, and these are known to 

 have received more Malay than any others ; while in the 

 many languages of the Pacific it does not occur at all. On 

 the other hand, two Sanscrit words having the same meaning 

 represent the same idea in no less than ten languages of Mr 

 Marsden's own list. 



The members and other pai'ts of an animal body, natural 

 objects, such as water, fire, earth, a stone, sun, moon, stars, 

 do really represent the earliest and simplest ideas, but their 

 wide dissemination is easily enough accounted for. In fact, 

 they are, for the most part, only synonymes along with native 

 terms, or, at best, woi'ds that have, in the lapse of time, dis- 

 placed the latter, as they have themselves been frequently 

 displaced by Sanscrit words. 



To give a few examples : in the Malagas!, besides the Ma- 

 layan word, there is one native one for " the sky,'' there arc 

 two for " the tongue," two for " a stone," four for " fire," 

 five for " the eye," five for " the head," and seven for the 

 vei'b " to die." 



In the Bisaya of the Philippines, there are, besides the 

 Malayan words, two native ones for " a stone," two for 

 " earth," four for " shore" or " beach," and six for " air" or 

 " wind." 



In the dictionaries of these last languages, I observe that 



* Discoveries in Central Australia, by John Edward Eyre. London, 1815. 



