712 



OCEANIA. 



has probably tho greatest influence, takes in the 

 great archipelago of the Philippines, including 

 Mindanao, tho cluster of the Sooloo islands, with 

 1'nlawan, and a small portion of the southern pro- 

 montory of Borneo. In the fifth or Molucca 

 group, the leading influence was probably exer- 

 cised bv the language of the most civilized nation, 

 the people of Ternate. A sixth group will em- 

 brace the South Sea Islands, inhabited by the yel 

 low-complexioned nice, whose languages, as we 

 are informed by Mr Ellis in his Polynesian Re- 

 searches, possess a great number of words that are 

 common to all the dialects of the south sea, but 

 which differ entirely from those of the northern or 

 western Oceanic nations. A separate group, 

 smaller than any of the preceding, might be formed 

 of the languages spoken from Flores to Timor in 

 elusive, by that race which is neither yellow-com- 

 plexioned nor Negrito, but partakes of both, and 

 which we have conjectured to be a third and dis- 

 tinct Oceanic race. 



To attempt any classification of the languages of 

 the Negrito tribes would, from our ignorance, be 

 a hopeless undertaking. From the little that we 

 do know of them, they would seem, as we might 

 very well expect, to differ even more from each 

 other than they do from the languages of the yel- 

 low complexioned race, or as much as the most 

 dissimilar of these differ from each other. In truth 

 they will probably be found not to admit of any 

 such classification. The language of each tribe 

 among this race will in all likelihood be found 

 distinct and original, and, wherever there are words 

 in common, it will be only where an immediate 

 neighbourhood has made the communication easy 

 and readily available, to a people so exceedingly 

 rude, weak, and ignorant. Specimens have bi-en 

 obtained of the dialects of the Negritos of the An- 

 daman islands, of the Malayan peninsula, of New 

 Guinea, and of those of several tribes of Australia; 

 but, except in a few instances in the Australian 

 languages, easily accounted for by the vicinity of 

 the tribes, there is no semblance of affinity between 

 any of them ; an analogy which tends materially to 

 discredit the hypothesis which would attribute a 

 common origin to the languages of the yellow com- 

 plexioned race. 



It should be here observed, that what are called, 

 in Europe, dialects, or the subdivisions of one lan- 

 guage, under different names, much modified by 

 time and circumstances, as in the case of the Span- 

 ish and Portuguese, of the Scotch and English, or 

 the Erse and Irish, have no existence among the 

 Oceanic nations. Languages here which have 

 different names are never dialects of each other. 

 A Malay is utterly unintelligible to a Lampong or 

 a Batta, although his neighbours. A Sunda is 

 unintelligible to a Javanese or to a native of Bali, 

 although the three languages are written in the 

 same character, and the nations speaking them 

 contiguous to each other. In the same manner, a 

 Bugis is unintelligible to a Macasar, although their 

 languages are written in the same character, and 

 although they have repeatedly conquered, and been 

 conquered, by each other. If we are to credit 

 some voyagers, this is not the case in many of the 

 South Sea Islands. A native of the Society 

 islands is, for example, described in Cooke's Voy- 

 ages as being perfectly well understood by the 

 natives of the Marquesas, distant at least 800 

 miles. Vi.e are inclined to question the accuracy 

 of this statement, and rather to believe that Tupia, 



the friend of captain Cook, had imposed on the il 

 lustrious navigator and his companions, than to 

 credit a story alike inconsistent with experience 

 and analogy. The dialects of the same language 

 which exist, however distinct the people speaking 

 them, are but trifling modifications of what may be 

 considered the parent language ; and this is proba- 

 bly in a great measure owing to the very remarka- 

 ble simplicity which is characteristic of the struc- 

 ture of all the languages of the Oceanic region. A 

 Malay of Champa, Jobore, and Borneo, have not 

 the least difficulty in understanding each other, 

 and the same is the case with the Bugis of Boni, 

 Tuwaju, and of the Bornean colony of Cooti. 

 They, in fact, amount to little more than provin- 

 cial variations. 



The question still remains to be considered, 

 how any portion of an Oceanic language, to what- 

 ever country that language belonged, should have 

 reached points so exceedingly remote as Easter 

 Island and the Sandwich group on one side, New 

 Zealand on another, and Madagascar on a third. 

 There can be no question, we think, but that the 

 language must have been communicated from the 

 populous and civilized quarter to the less populous 

 and civilized, that is, except in the instance of 

 Madagascar, from west to east. Any other theory 

 would suppose a case which has never happened in 

 any other part of the world, of weak and barbarous 

 tribes imposing a portion of their language upon 

 more powerful and civilized ones. It is perfectly 

 easy to understand how such a language should 

 have spread from one tribe to another within the 

 tranquil and narrow seas, and with the assistance 

 of the steady monsoons, between Sumatra and 

 New Guinea. Considering the many islands, not. 

 very remote from each other, which run from New 

 Guinea to the Friendly Islands, it is perhaps not 

 very difficult to conceive how words of a western 

 language should be communicated to the inhabi 

 tants even of these distant islands. Monsoons, or 

 winds blowing one half of the year from east, and 

 the other half from west, are now ascertained to 

 prevail as far as the island of Rotuna, between the 

 170th and 180th degrees of east longitude, which 

 in the course of ages would carry even frail native 

 praos from one island to another, and thus propa- 

 gate the common language. With respect to the 

 more distant countries, considering the ignorance, 

 unskilfulness, and want of enterprise, which char- 

 acterise the state of society, even among the most 

 improved of the insular races races which have 

 never gone, but by accident, beyond the precincts 

 of their own peculiar region the difficulty of ra- 

 tionally accounting for it is great. The matter 

 must not, however, be left in the condition of a 

 miracle or wonder : we must therefore make the 

 attempt. 



Beginning our examination to the north of what 

 may be strictly called the Oceanic region, the first 

 and nearest countries which occur, although not 

 strictly within that region, are the Nicobar and 

 Andaman islands in the gulph of Bengal the first 

 inhabited by the yellow complexioned race, with 

 lank hair, and in a very tolerably civilized state ; 

 and the last by a Negrito race, in the very lowest 

 scale of human existence. The nations inhabiting 

 these two groups have every appearance of being, 

 physically, the same, respectively, as the yellow 

 and negro races of the Oceanic region, and yet 

 their languages not only differ entirely from each 

 other, but neither of them contains one word of 



