242 The Oceanic Languages Shemitic : a Discovery. 



words in 1000 of Malay, and none in Polynesia. The same 

 great authority on this subject {Dissertation, p. 287), speaking 

 of the languages of South-eastern Asia generally, the con- 

 tinental languages nearest geographically to Malaysia, says : 

 — " The languages of these countries are generally monosyl- 

 labic and the Malayan polysyllabic. They refuse to amal- 

 gamate or intermix, of which we have some striking proofs. 

 The Chinese have been settled in great numbers throughout 

 the Archipelago for many centuries, and intermarried with 

 the native inhabitants, yet there are certainly not a dozen 

 words of any Chinese language in Malay, Javanese, or any 

 other native tongue of the Archipelago." 



The Oceanic is described by Professor Whitney (Life and 

 Growth of Languages, ch. xii., International Scientific Series), 

 following Muller, as " a vast and perfectly well-developed 

 family, the Malay- Polynesian," comprising the Malagasy, 

 Malayan, Polynesian, and Melanesian, better called the 

 Papuan. By Latham (Comp. Phil., ch. 54) the Oceanic is 

 divided into two great branches, the one of which may be 

 called the Malay, if we include under that name, for con- 

 venience' sake, the Malagasy, Micronesian, and Polynesian 

 proper ; the other is the Papuan, which prevails in New 

 Guinea, the New Hebrides, and intervening islands. The 

 Oceanic languages are more widely diffused than any other. 

 Between Madagascar and Easter Island there are two hun- 

 dred degrees of longitude. The family thus widely diffused 

 over two oceans, and having no apparent connection* with 

 those of the adjacent mainlands of Africa, Asia, and America, 

 some have suggested, by way of accounting for its existence, 

 that the isles in which it is spoken may be the hill-tops of 

 an ancient submerged continent ; others that this so-called 

 family is not really a family, but a multitude of hetero- 

 geneous indigenous languages, with a number of common 

 Malay words added to them by Malayan immigrants. The 

 former of these suggestions never attracted much attention, 

 and the latter, though elaborately asserted by Crawford in 

 his dissertation prefixed to his Malay dictionary, has always 

 had the great majority of scholars against it, and may be 



* From what central point (says Whitney the migrations of the tribes and 

 their dialects took place it is not possible to tell. The family is strictly an 

 insular one. — Life and Gromtli of Language, p. 242. London, 1880, Inter- 

 national Scientific Series. 



