OCEANIA. 



713 



the Oceanic languages. The languages of the 

 Nicobar group, although agreeing in many words, 

 appear radically to differ among themselves. It 

 is certainly a most remarkahle circumstance that 

 these islands, the largest of which is not above a 

 hundred miles distant from the north-west extrem- 

 ity of Sumatra, and between which the illustrious 

 navigator Diimpier sailed in an open boat, should 

 not contain a word of the Oceanic dialects, so 

 widely spread in other quarters ; neither do they 

 seem to have adopted the language or religion of 

 the Hindoos or Mohammedans. The natives of 

 the Nicobars, however, have their own peculiar 

 numerals, and in other respects exhibit considera- 

 ble evidence of an indigenous civilization ; they did 

 not therefore stand in need of foreign aid, and the 

 distance, although short, is in a stormy sea, with 

 neither monsoon favourable. It may be added 

 that the languages of these islands are polysyllabic, 

 and partake in no respect of the monosyllabic lan- 

 guages of the adjacent continent. The existence 

 of a yellow complexioned race in this quarter, and 

 so near, yet with wholly distinct languages, ought, 

 one might suppose, to be of itself quite sufficient 

 to destroy the theory of one great Oceanic lan- 

 guage. 



The first point where we discover evidence of 

 an Oceanic language is among the people of 

 Champa, both on the shores of the China sea, and 

 on the gulph of Siam. This is, however, an affair 

 of comparatively modern times, and the result of 

 the settlement of a Malay colony about 400 years 

 ago. The people are of a different race from the 

 inhabitants of the country, and, speaking a poly- 

 syllabic language among monosyllabic ones, are dis- 

 tinct to the present day ; and their speech, of which 

 we possess a tolerably copious vocabulary, is no- 

 thing more than a slightly modified dialect of the 

 Malay.* We find the next traces in the island of 

 Formosa, not above fifty miles from the coast of 

 China. The west coast and plains of this island 

 are peopled by a comparatively recent Chinese 

 colony, but the mountainous eastern side by an 

 aboriginal race. It is, of course, in the dialect of 

 these last only that traces of an Oceanic language 

 are to be discovered. From vicinity and similarity 

 of words, we judge that these people received the 

 Oceanic dialect through the medium of the Philip- 

 pines. The distance from the northern part of 

 Luconia does not exceed 300 miles, and with the 

 westerly monsoon, which is the mild one in the 

 China seas, there would be no difficulty, even in a 

 very rude state of navigation, in passing from the 

 last to the first. From the same Philippines, in 

 all probability, the Oceanic dialects were communi- 

 cated to the Marianne, the Pelew, and the Caro- 

 line islands, for here also the monsoons are propi- 

 tious. 



Turning how to the south-east, we are disposed 

 to consider that the centre from which the Oce- 

 anic language was communicated in this quarter, 

 was the language of the Bugis of Celebes. These, 

 to the present day, hold a commercial intercourse 

 with the Aru islands and the Negritos of New 

 Guinea, and proceed yearly to the gulf of Carpen- 

 taria, in Australia, to fish the Holothurion or Sea- 

 Slug, for the market of China. To the natives of 

 New Holland, who cannot count beyond four, and 

 who are too brutal to receive any useful information, 

 they have communicated nothing. If in the course 



* Crawford's Journal of a Mission to Siam and Cochin-Chinn, 

 p. 4C7. 



of this voyage, their praos should be drifted by 

 the prevailing easterly wind to the westward, they 

 would naturally keep hold of the coast of Austra- 

 lia, and fortune and accident might conduct them 

 to the latitude of westerly winds, which, in due 

 course would bring them down upon the land of 

 New Zealand, where they would first discover 

 men of the same race with themselves, and, not- 

 withstanding the barbarism of their manners, men 

 bold, adventurous, and not inaccessible to a rude 

 instruction. The praos of New Zealand might be 

 drifted down by westerly winds even as far as 

 Easter Island, and from Easter Island the trade 

 winds would drift them, or the inhabitants of the 

 island, upon the Marquesas and the Society Islands, 

 from whence again a voyage seems practicable, 

 even with praos, and within the trade winds, to 

 the Sandwich Islands. The great similarityvvhich 

 exists between the numerals of all these islands, 

 makes this hypothesis not improbable ; at all 

 events, it wears a greater air of probability than 

 the supposed existence of one original general lan- 

 guage, of which the experience of the rest of the 

 world affords no example. 



We have only now to consider how the Oce- 

 anic language reached Madagascar, distant from 

 the nearest point of the Oceanic region, Sumatra, 

 more than 3000 mites, in a strait direction. This, 

 although at first sight the most difficult circum- 

 stance to be accounted for, turns out, in reality, 

 to be one of the easiest, while, at the same time, 

 it tends to illustrate the manner in which migra- 

 tion and dissemination of language may have taken 

 place within the Oceanic region itself. Since our 

 own possession of the Mauritius and its dependen- 

 cies in Madagascar, during the last twenty-four 

 years, several praos, drifted from Sumatra by the 

 strength of the north-east monsoon, and carried 

 into the trade winds, have reached Madagascar, as 

 the first land, with several of their crews, whose 

 lives were preserved by the accidental presence in 

 their boats of a few cocoa nuts, which served 

 them both as food and drink. These strangers, 

 arriving among a very rude people, such as the 

 inhabitants of Madagascar still are, (and which 

 they would be in a still greater degree, were we 

 to deprive them of the ideas and objects which 

 are expressed in their language by Oceanic terms,) 

 may be easily conceived in a condition to com- 

 municate useful instruction to them ; more parti- 

 cularly when such instruction was of so humble a 

 character as not to be above the capacity of the 

 latter, as the numerals, and the name of rice, an 

 article now extensively cultivated in Madagascar, 

 and the introduction of which was probably owing 

 to a few accidental handfuls found in the drifted 

 praos of the Oceanic tribes. That this was the 

 original channel of communication we think we 

 are warranted in assuming, not only from these 

 being the nearest countries, but from the striking 

 similarity of the words in the respective languages. 

 The languages of Acheen and the Nias islands are 

 probably those which furnished words to the dia- 

 lects of Madagascar. But it is by no means neces- 

 sary to refer to one or two languages only. 

 Words might be adopted from several of the Ma- 

 layan dialects, according to the tribe of strangers 

 that reached the coast of Madagascar. That such 

 was the case, is rendered the more probable, when 

 it is found that the several dialects of Madagascar 

 do not always employ the same Oceanic term for 

 the same thing. We may, however, observe, that 



