458 APPENDIX. 



wonderful when we remember that it is, with the exception of 

 that portion which prevails in the Archipelago, an oral language. 



The languages of Polynesia were only spoken languages, and 

 the language of Madagascar was, until within the last forty years, 

 an unwritten language. The Portuguese, by whom the island was 

 discovered, and its other early visitors, found no hieroglyphics, 

 picture-writing, or other kind of record among its inhabitants ; 

 and subsequent intercourse has furnished no evidence of the 

 knowledge of letters ever having existed amongst the native 

 population. It is true that long before Europeans had passed 

 round the Cape of Good Hope, Moors and Arabs had visited 

 Madagascar for purposes of commerce, and had settled in small 

 numbers on several parts of the coast. These Arabs, and other 

 traders, brought with them their own written language, which 

 they used in their mercantile transactions with the people. They 

 probably attempted also to teach it to some of the natives ; but 

 it was only the language of the strangers that was written, and 

 its use appears to have been confined to the localities in which 

 they temporarily resided. No vestiges remain of the oral language 

 of these traders, beyond a few terms connected chiefly with divi- 

 nation, astrology, and other usages of Arabic origin. The intro- 

 duction of letters early in the present century, their rapidly ex- 

 tended use among the people, the formation of grammars exhibit- 

 ing the peculiarity of the several parts of speech, do not seem to 

 have produced any change in the language as used by the people 

 themselves; and the language of Madagascar appears to retain 

 at the present time all the distinctive qualities by which it was 

 characterised when brought by the first settlers to the country, 

 excepting so far as it may have been modified by themselves. 

 The few new words which foreign objects have rendered neces- 

 sary have been so altered, in order to adapt them to native use, 

 as to leave but little resemblance to their original forms. 



This language exhibits a singular instance, paradoxical as it 

 may appear, of a people in a comparatively low grade of civilisa- 

 tion, possessing and using a language copious, precise, and in 

 some respects highly philosophical. And this circumstance natu- 

 rally suggests deeply interesting inquiries, not only in reference 



