462 APPENDIX. 



Eev. D. Griffiths, in his Malagasy and English Grammar, the 

 latest and most extensive grammar yet published, states that 

 some single roots will produce two hundred words of different 

 orthography and signification. There is nothing approaching to 

 this extent of compound words in any of the Polynesian dialects ; 

 and minute distinctions seem redundant in the Malagasy, when we 

 are told that there are twenty different words for expressing the 

 manner of growth of the horns of an ox, and thirty words to 

 signify the several modes in which the natives plait their hair. 

 This multiplication of words for varying shades of meaning, and 

 the facility of forming many compound words from a single root, 

 adds to the copiousness of the language, which often combines 

 conciseness with great precision of meaning. Thus, mody is " to 

 go home," tampody, " to go out and return home the same day." 



Much precision of meaning is often manifest in the use of nouns 

 formed from adjectives of quality, as, ratsy, bad ; haratsiana, 

 badness, wickedness in the abstract ; faharatsiana, wickedness 

 in action ; tsara, good ; hatsarana, goodness in the abstract ; 

 fahatsarana, goodness in operation. Thus, hatsarana is an attri- 

 bute of God — his essential goodness ; fahatsarana is his goodness 

 in action — the benevolence he exercises. 



Most of the words are compound Avords, but some are roots, and 

 exist in no simpler form. The roots generally consist of woi'ds 

 of two or three syllables, but in some cases of only one, and for 

 the most part they are nouns, or passive particijiles. Most of the 

 roots and compound words are occasionally doubled, which in- 

 creases or diminishes the force of the original word. 



To the language of Madagascar, as well as to those of Poly- 

 nesia, the missionaries have judiciously adapted the Roman cha- 

 racter ; and though there are a few sounds which seem to be inter- 

 mediate between those expressed by two consonants in European 

 languages, or to blend two consonants in one sound, this apparent 

 inconvenience is of little consequence when compared with the 

 obvious advantages of the Roman letters. 



The Malagasy alphabet consists of twenty-one letters, sixteen 

 consonants, and five vowels. The i and y have tlie same sound, 

 but the latter is uniformly the terminal vowel. The letters 



