454 APPENDIX. 



form and feature, between the Malagasy and the Polynesians ; and 

 asking the names of some of the common objects, I found tliat 

 tany was the word for earth or land, which in some of the Poly- 

 nesian dialects is aina and tana; that lanitra, pronounced lanit, 

 was the name of heaven or sky, which in the Sandwich and other 

 islands is called layii or langi ; that mata signified, as it does in 

 Polynesia, the human face ; that nio, pronounced niu, the name 

 for the cocoa-nut tree, was exactly the same as in the South Sea 

 Islands ; and that the names of the pandanus and other trees 

 growing around were, with slight variations, the same as those 

 used by the Tahitians and Sandwich Islanders. These and other 

 coincidences greatly strengthened my previously formed opinions 

 as to the close resemblance, if not identity, of these languages. 

 Subsequent investigations furnished additional evidence of this 

 resemblance, not only in the signification of words of the same 

 sound, but in the arrangement and grammatical structure of the 

 language ; while protracted intercourse with the people also made 

 me acquainted with many important points in which, in both 

 these respects, the languages differ from each other. 



One of the most remarkable facts in connection with the Ma- 

 lagasy language is the vast distance to which the same language 

 has been extended. That there is an intimate connection, if not 

 radical identity, between the Malayan and other languages spoken 

 throughout the Asiatic Archipelago and those used by the races 

 inhabiting the islands spread over the eastern part of the Pacific 

 Ocean on the one hand, and that spoken by the natives of Mada- 

 gascar on the other, does not now admit of doubt. Verbal and 

 grammatical difierences characterise the several families of lan- 

 guages or dialects, in their respective regions, and also prevail 

 to some extent amongst collections of languages or dialects be- 

 longing to the same region ; but, underlying these, appear indu- 

 bitable traces of one primitive language, of which the verbal or 

 structural features may, in a greater or less degree, still be dis- 

 covered in them all. 



Regarding Sumatra or the Malayan peninsula as a centre, this 

 language has extended to the eastward across the Pacific Ocean 

 to Easter Island, a distance of 150 degrees ; and, on the other 



