EXISTENCE OF DISTINCT DIALECTS. 117 



doubtless furnish fresh facts in the same direction. There is 

 still, however, a residuum of a few important words whose 

 origin has not yet been discovered. 



Some of the facts pointed out by ^Mr. Wallace as to the 

 limited area of some of these Malayan languages, such as the 

 existence of very distinct dialects, and sometimes altogether 

 different tongues, in neighbouring villages (see Mai. Arch. pp. 

 473—475, vol. ii.), seem very remarkable when compared with 

 the substantial unity of language over so large an island as 

 Madagascar, which has an area of more than 200,000 square 

 miles. The same condition of things as exists in Malaysia 

 is found also on the south-east coast of New Guinea, where 

 the Eev. W. G. Lawes says there are from twenty to thirty 

 distinct languages on a coast-line of only two to three hundred 

 miles in length. 



In Madagascar, on the other hand, we find a number of 

 tribes scattered over a large area, many of them with con- 

 siderable tracts of uninhabited country separating them from \ 

 other tribes, and yet strangely alike in language and in / 

 customs, and to a certain extent also in physical qualities.'"* ' 



Considerations of language would lead one to infer that the 

 ancestors of the Malagasy came from a rather wide area of 

 the Malayan Archipelago ; that then they remained together 

 long enough in one part of Madagascar for their various lan- 

 guages to unite so as to become one tongue ; and that subse- 

 quently they separated into the different tribes now inhabiting 

 the country, their varying dialects as at present existing 

 becoming gradually differentiated from the original stock, 

 j)artly through the custom oi fady or tabooing the words and 

 particles occurring in the names of their chiefs (see chajDter 

 on Language), and also by other well-known influences 

 which are constantly affecting and slowly changing human 

 speech. 



Then there is a third question which meets us : How did 

 the ancestors of the Malagasy come from their distant homes 



* These are : a somewhat flatter physiognomy than is found among Euro- 

 peans, the men being usually better formed than the women, among whom 

 there is a tendency to corpulency ; having weak beards, generally plucked out 

 when young ; and somewhat colder blood and general temperature of body than 

 Europeans have. See History of Madagascar, vol. i, p. 115. 



