THE GREAT OCEAN. 381 



vocabularies of the Pampango, Bisaya, and Yloco 

 languages have been printed. The grammars of 

 the other languages are MSS., and the copies of 

 them are chiefly in the provinces, in the hands of 

 the fathers. 



According to the evidence of all the Tagalists, 

 these seven dialects agree in essential particu- 

 lars, both in the grammatical forms and in the 

 roots. We ourselves have compared the gram- 

 mars of the Tagala, Pampango, and Bisaya lan- 

 guages, and observed but very inconsiderable 

 variations. If the difference in the pronunciation 

 hinders the native of one province from imme- 

 diately understanding that of another, yet a short 

 time suffices to remove the difficulty, and he soon 

 learns to recognize his own language. Conse- 

 quently, what is said of the Tagalese is applicable 

 to the other dialects. 



Leyden in the Asiatic Researches, p. 207, has re- 

 presented the Tagalese, Malay, Bugis, and Javanese 

 as sister languages j he has reduced the more 

 artificial construction of the Tagalese to the ele- 

 ments of the Malay, and proved in both the 

 identity of the particles, upon which, in a system 

 of language that has no declension whatever, all 

 grammar depends. 



Leyden appears to us not sufficiently to appre- 

 ciate the meritorious diligence with which the 

 Tagalists have reduced into a table of conjuga- 

 tions (which at least affords an easy view) the 



