232 ON THE LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE 



prosecuting the inquiry, both by his abihties, and 

 his situation. 



VIII. Barma. — The Barma language is used by 

 the great and powerful nation of the Barmas. The 

 name of this nation has been written differently, by 

 almost as many authors as have mentioned it, while 

 no person seems to have thought it worth his while 

 to inquire how the Barmas wrote their own name. 

 This they constantly write Barma, though from 

 affecting an indistinct pronunciation, they often term 

 themselves Bi/anwia, Bomma, and Myarnma, which 

 are only vocal corruptions of the written name. 

 Amadutius, however, in his preface to the " Alpha- 

 betum Barmanum sen Boma/ium,'' with equal igno- 

 rance and confidence, denies flatly, that any nation, 

 country, city, or language, exists, which by the 

 natives themselves is denominated Barma. This 

 name, he asserts to have been introduced solely by 

 the ignorance and \'icious pronunciation of Eiiropea7is, 

 since, says he, by the analogy of the language, the 

 nation is denominated Bomah, the great nation, from 

 bo, the head, a chief, and mah, a man. This silly va- 

 pouring etvmology is, however, entirely averse to the 

 established orthography of the ^^n7zr7.s- themselves, and 

 only worthy of P. Paul in us, or a modern Frenchman. 



The Barma language, like the Riikhhig, in its 

 original state appears to be purely monosyllabic, 

 but it has borrowed freely from the Bali, and in 

 imitation apparently of that language, it has some- 

 times formed words of some length, by the coalescing 

 of its original monosyllables. Being completely 

 devoid of every species of flection, whether in nouns, 

 pronouns, or verbs, its construction is extremely 

 simple, and depends almost solely on the principle 

 of juxta- position, like its cognate dialect, the 



