president's address SECTION F. 143 



Professor Bopp, of Berlin, recognises the relationship of the 

 Oceanic tongues with the Malay, and traces these to Sanskrit 

 originals. Another and more recent writer. Judge Abraham 

 Fornander, of the Sandwich Islands, believes that the Malay words 

 found in the Polynesian languages are a recent and accidental in- 

 troduction, and that the root words of these languages can be 

 traced to the Aryan family. Dr. J. Fraser. who has given con- 

 siderable attention to Polynesian and Australian tongues, is of the 

 same opinion with respect to the Aryan originals. Dr. Codring- 

 ton's investigations will afford much light on these subjects. In 

 some of the islands of the Indian Ocean the languages of the 

 people bear a close affinity with those of Polynesia. This is 

 observable in the Malagasy and in the tongue of the Weddahs, a 

 primitive and wild tribe of Ceylon, now nearly extinct, whose 

 language is pronounced to be a corrupt form of Sanskrit. 



Much more might be added on this important topic, but I 

 forbear. I have already made my address too long, and many able 

 writers are publishing their investigations in comparative philo- 

 logy, and clearer light is being thrown on the subject than has 

 hitherto been obtained. It is apparent that various and long- 

 continued migrations of the people, and the consequent admixture 

 of the races, are the causes to which we may attribute the dis- 

 memberment and corruption of languages. 



History affords us some evidences of the stupendous upheavals 

 of Asiatic peoples, and the changes and convulsions which over- 

 threw one nation after the otlier when Assyrian. Babylonian, 

 Persian, Greek, Arab, Saracen, and Tartar successively struggled 

 for supremacy, and displaced and superseded each other in power ; 

 and in their march of conquest overran India, extending further 

 and further eastward. From these causes Ave may look for a con- 

 tinued intermixture of races ; and the turbulence of war propelled 

 weak races to seek asylums at a distance from their conquerors, 

 and such asylums may have been found in the Pacific Islands, from 

 the Malay Archipelago to the coast of America. 



You will pardon me for a slight digression, and jiermit me, as an 

 old Polynesian missionary, to add that a desirable aim in our pursuit 

 is to awaken increased interest in the remarkable people of the 

 Pacific Islands, and to desire above the solution of scientific ques- 

 tions an ethical and benevolent inquiry — How may these people 

 be best reached by evangelical and civilising influences ? Thus, 

 our investigations will possess a tone and object of vast moment to 

 the future well-being of the Polynesians. 



