OF THE INDO-CHINESE NATIONS. 265 



With words in the Khiinn or Mandarin-Chinese, and 

 also in the Kung-tung, as well as others, which 

 closely resemble T'hay or Siamese vocables-; but 

 nevertheless, all the essential parts of the Anam lan- 

 guage are original and unconnected with any of the 

 other monosyllabic languages, of which I have any 

 knowledge. Barrow, an authority of some weight, 

 in his " Voyage to Cochin-China" seems to consider 

 the Anam as a derivative from the Chinese, " because 

 it is constructed on the same principle." (p. 301.) 

 " The spoken language," he obseives, "has under- 

 gone a very considerable change, which is the less 

 ■surprising, as the inhabitants of the northern and 

 southern provinces of China, are unintelligible to 

 each other; but though it has been altered, it does 

 not appear to have received any improvement, neither 

 from additions of their own, nor from the introduc- 

 tion of foreign words." (p. 322.) The precise 

 meaning of this sentence, I confess I do not under- 

 stand. The mass of the Anam language, whether 

 nouns, verbs, or significant particles, is totally dif- 

 ferent from that spoken Chinese language with which 

 he has compared it; and he himself admits, "That 

 ife is so much changed from the original, as to be 

 nearly, if not wholly, unintelligible to a Chinese." 

 The A?iam nation employ several sounds and letters 

 which are incapable of being pronounced by a 

 Chinese, such as b, d, and r. The particles which 

 form the cement, or construction of the language, 

 are also different ; and in addition to all these, the 

 Anam language has a peculiar character of its own, 

 which is not understood by the Chinese. It is dif^- 

 cult, after this, to conceive what similarity exists 

 between the Chinese and Anam, unless that they are 

 both monosyllabic languages, and that the signifi- 

 cation of terms is regulated, in a great measure, by 



