OF THE INDO-CHINESE NA^ION^. 207 



rangement is difFerent, and so far from beinc^ consi- 

 dered as original alphabets, they are only reoarded, 

 as far as I could learn, by the Batias, as different 

 forms of the same character. Indeed, the greater 

 part of the differences they exhibit in form, may be 

 fairly attributed to the different materials on which 

 they write, and the different manner of writing; 

 while the diversity in the number and arrangement 

 of the letters may be referred to the same causes which 

 have produced a similar variety in the BugU alphabet. 



VI. Tag A LA. — The Tagala or rather Ta-Gida or 

 the Gala language is among the Phillipwes, what 

 the Malayit, is in the Malay islands or the Hindostani 

 in H'mdostan proper. A Spanish missionary, who pos- 

 sessed a minute knowledge of this language, has de- 

 clared, that " The Tagala possesses the combined ad 

 vantages of the four principal languages in the world. 

 It is mysterious as the Hehrtw ; it has articles for 

 pouns, both appellative and proper, like the Greek ; 

 it is elegant and copious as the Latin ; and equal to 

 the Italian^ as the language of compliment or busi- 

 ness." To examine rigorously the justness of this 

 eulogium, is foreign to my purpose ; it is necessary 

 only to state, that it is considered by those who have 

 studied it with most attention, as the radical lan- 

 guage, from which the greater part, if not all, the 

 dialects of the Philippines are derived. A mis- 

 sionary, who had resided eighteen years in these 

 islands, and whose account of them has been trans- 

 lated from the Spanish, and printed by Thevenot in 

 the second part of his " Relations de divers Voyages 

 Curieuses. Paris 1664," declares, that though every 

 district has I'ts particular dialect, yet that these have 

 all some relation to each other, such as subsists 

 among the Lombard, Sicilian, arid Tuscan dialects. 

 There are six dialects of this kind,, in the island of 



