382 APPENDIX IV. 



A consideration of the above vocabulary would at first give the impression 

 that the Sulu language is more nearly akin to ]\Ialay than it really is. Many 

 of the words are, no doubt, pure ]\Ialay, and I learnt from Captain Schiick that 

 there are also a considerable number of Javanese and Bugis words in use. That 

 this might be expected is evident from the fact that the Spaniards on their first 

 discovery of the Philippines, now three centuries and a half ago, found Malay a 

 generally spoken language on the coasts, while the Bugis have l)een ti'aders in 

 these seas from prehistoric times. 



In construction, however, the Sulu language differs considerably from the 

 Malay, but resembles the Bisaya and Tagalog — the two languages most Avidely 

 spoken in the Philippine Islands ^ — and possibly others also of this grouj), but 

 of this I have no means of judging. There are other verbal points of re- 

 semblance. Mr. CraAvfurd, contrasting the Tagalog with Malay (" Malay Gr. 

 and Diet." vol. i. p. cvi.), calls attention to the frequency of h as an initial in 

 the former language, while in the latter it is unknown in native words. The 

 letter v also, non-existent in Malay, is not uncommon. The Sulu language has 

 both these — lioon, hcciiq), habavau, lavang, etc. — and the aspii'ate is strong. The 

 apposition of two rough consonants and the cacophonic terminal g are sho's\ai 

 Ijy Mr. Crawfurd to be characteristic of the Philippine languages, and impossible 

 in the soft, flowing Malay, but they are frequent in Sulu, as in the words clagbus, 

 hipagbi, hinog, lidag. As in Tagalog, aiixiliary prefixes or separate particles are 

 in use to express tense in the Sulu verbs, which are apparently chiefly formed 

 from I'adicles by the prefixes male, ma, or nag. Numbers of the Sulu words are 

 Bisayan or Tagalog, and, on the whole, it would seem that Sulu is almost as 

 distinctly Philippine in its language as it is in its flora and fauna, although its 

 position has been the cause of the influx of a considerable number of foreign 

 words.- 



^ According to Mr. Keaue ("Australasia," Stanford's Compeudiinn, p. 623), Tagalog is 

 con lined to Mindoro and certain provinces of Luzon, while the Bisayan is spolcen over a 

 wider area to the south : " in Pauay, Bohol, Zebu, Leyte, Ticao, Roniblon, and Samar 

 exclusively, and in parts of the islands Mindanao and Negros." 



- In the vocabulary given above there are four words — larmsahan, table ; sea, chair or 

 stool ; esjnr, large kris ; and araro, to plough — which have doubtless a Spanish origin. 



