PHILOLOGY. 



521 



Mr Adelung (1 Mithrid, 87) gives a curious exam- 

 ple of those homophonies in the language of Tonquin 

 (one of those we are speaking of), which deserves 

 to be noticed. In that monosyllabic idiom, the 

 word ba has six different signi6cations ; it means a 

 lord, abandoned, something contemptible, three, pre- 

 sent, and the concubine of a prince ; and this word, 

 repeated six times, and varied by different tones or 

 accents, makes the following sentence : " Three 

 lords made a present to the concubine of a prince. 

 How contemptible that is." Mr Adelung quotes no 

 authority for this fact, which is, at least, curious, if 

 not exaggerated. Sinologists agree that the Chinese 

 language, on the model of which the Tonquinese ap- 

 pears to be formed, is entirely destitute of gramma- 

 tical forms. It has no affixes nor suffixes, no inflec- 

 tions of words, declensions of nouns, nor conjuga- 

 tions of verbs, and but very few auxiliary words, de- 

 signating the various relations of speech. (See Re- 

 musat, Essai sur la Langue, &c., p 27.) It is, says 

 Mr Adelung, a language entirely composed of roots, 

 poor in words, and rich in tropes (1 Mithrid., 43 

 93) ; its grammar consists in the choice of words, 

 its syntax in their juxtaposition ; it is satisfied with 

 awakening leading ideas ; all that is Merely acces- 

 sory or auxiliary is understood or guessed at. Of 

 course, the Chinese idiom is essentially elliptical. 

 This extraordinary structure of language extends to 

 tile south to the peninsula of Malacca, where begins 

 another class of languages, and to the west to 

 Hindoostan. 



Our knowledge of these monosyllabic idioms is 

 yet very limited, but it is daily increasing by the 

 labours of the learned. The Asiatic society of Cal- 

 cutta, until the late conquest of part of the Birman 

 empire, occupied itself more with the languages of 

 the peninsula of India than with those of the coun- 

 tries situated between the gulf of Siam and the Yel- 

 low sea. It is, nevertheless, to that illustrious asso- 

 ciation that we owe the most detailed facts that we 

 possess respecting those idioms. In the first place, 

 captain Towers has made us acquainted with the 

 languages of Ava and Arracan, and their alphabeti- 

 cal system of writing (5 Asiat. Researches, 143 ; 

 next, Mr Buchanan initiated us further into the 

 knowledge of the languages, religion and literature 

 of the Birman empire (ibid, page 209) ; and lastly, 

 doctor Leyden has given us a most interesting view 

 of the languages which he denominates Indo-Chinese, 

 part of which fill the space between the Chinese em- 

 pire and Hindoostan. Those languages, among 

 which that of Thibet is not included, are fourteen in 

 number, seven of which, including the sacred lan- 

 guage called Bali, or Pali, are polysyllabic, and the 

 seven others monosyllabic. These last are the Buk- 

 heng, or language of Arracan ; the Barma, or Avan- 

 ese ; the M6n, or Peguan : the T'hay, or Siamese ; 

 the Khohmen, or idiom of Camboje ; the Law, or 

 language of Laos, and the Anam, or language of 

 Tonquin and Cochin-China. The seven others are 

 the Malay, and the different languages of the islands 

 of Sunda and the Philippines (10 Asiat. Res. 158, 

 163). Mr Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, has 

 not adopted this classification of the Indo-Chinese 

 languages. He has divided those called monosylla- 

 bic, considered in an etymological point of view, in- 

 to seven branches, which are the Corean, the Thib- 

 etan, the Chinese, the Anamitic, the Siamese, the 

 Avanese, and the Peguan. Dr Leyden's descrip- 

 tion comprehends all these, except the Thibetan and 

 the Corean, which, however, belong to the class of 

 monosyllabic idioms. This description, nevertheless, 

 is of the highest interest. It shows us the monosyl- 

 labic languages gradually mixing with the polysyl- 

 labic, and these with them, so that the one or the 



other form predominates as they approach or recede 

 from the territories of China and Hindoostan re- 

 spectively, until one of them assumes the entire 

 mastership. Thus the languages of Ava and Arra- 

 can borrow polysyllabic words from those of their 

 neighbours ; those changes, however, are not numer- 

 ous, the general character of the language always 

 remaining monosyllabic. On the other hand, doctor 

 Leyden shows us the Malay idiom, participating, in 

 a very high degree, in the simplicity of the monosyl- 

 labic tongues, a character which this class of lan- 

 guages preserves quite across the Pacific ocean to a 

 very short distance from the American continent, 

 where suddenly appears the most complicated sys- 

 tem of human language that exists, perhaps, on the 

 face of the earth, extending over the whole of that 

 vast continent. This picture is admirable, and gives 

 rise to a crowd of reflections. Here would be the 

 place to describe the grammatical forms and charac- 

 ter of that remarkable class of languages which per- 

 vades the whole continent of America, thence pass- 

 es over into Greenland on the one side, on the other 

 into that neck of land in Asia, inhabited by the 

 Tschutschki, and which, it is well ascertained, once 

 prevailed in the West India islands. But this has 

 been so fully done in the article Indian languages, 

 that further expatiating upon that subject would be 

 but a useless repetition ; and we therefore will con- 

 tent ourselves with referring our readers to that arti- 

 cle. It will amply satisfy their curiosity. 



The monosyllabic languages of south-eastern Asia 

 and the polysyllabic idioms of America may be con- 

 sidered as the two extremes in the great chain of 

 human modes of speech. On the one side, we find 

 the greatest simplicity and a total absence of forms, 

 a scanty number of words, and those all monosylla- 

 bic, while on the other we observe all the opposite 

 characteristics, languages essentially polysyllabic, 

 and in which monosyllables are rarely to be found, 

 artificial and complicated grammatical forms, words 

 that can be compounded to any extent ; and, what is 

 more remarkable, the former class of languages be- 

 longs to nations in a great degree civilized, and who, 

 for many ages, have cultivated arts and sciences, and 

 lived under regular governments, while the latter 

 are spoken by savage nations ignorant of arts, as- 

 sociating without laws or forms of government, and 

 living together in a state of nature. No reasoning 

 a priori could ever have led to the supposition of 

 similar results ; but the facts exist, and cannot be 

 denied, and philosophy is at a loss to point out the 

 cause from which they have been produced. Passing 

 on from Greenland, the north-eastermost part of 

 America, to Iceland, and from thence to the north- 

 western coast of Europe, we find an immense and 

 an abrupt change in the character of languages. 

 The Scandinavian dialects are not, indeed, monosyl- 

 labic, but they abound in prepositions, conjunctions, 

 and a variety of particles, with which their discourse 

 is chiefly connected. Few inflections exist in those 

 languages. Their grammatical forms are simple, their 

 yntax natural, and their system, on the whole, the 

 least complex of any that exists in that part of the 

 world. On the Asiatic side are the idioms of the 

 Samoiede and Siberian tribes, the structure of which 

 is but little known ; but it is sufficiently ascertained 

 that it bears no resemblance to that of the American 

 languages. In .Japan, we are struck with a re- 

 markable fact two languages existing at the same 

 time, the one monosyllabic and atactic, like the 

 Chinese, aud the other polysyllabic, with numerous 

 nflections and grammatical forms. The former is call- 

 ed the Koye, the latter the Yomi. Both are in use 

 at the same time, and occasionally intermix with 

 each other, still preserving their general character 



