﻿26 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



they differ from the Thibetan." The positive results which he sums up, 

 after a most full and laborious exposition, including in the process numerous 

 investigations and examples, are, " that the bases of Thibeto, Ultra-Indian, 

 Dravirian, and Sythic formations are strongly allied to Chinese, not only by 

 their monosyllabic character, but by many structural traits, and it may be added 

 by glossarial affinities also. The three formations are further and more closely 

 connected with each other by syntactic chai'acters which are not Chinese, by 

 the possession of a harmonic phonology — feeble in the Thibeto Ultra-Indian 

 lang-uages, and powerful in the Sythic, and by numerous common roots." 



Thus I have endeavored to show, by as short extracts as possible, from the 

 writings of an acknowledged high authority, that there are links of language 

 between Archaic South India and the rest of Asia, which will prepare the 

 mind to pursue other connections from the same region with Polynesia, and 

 which latter is the immediate subject of this paper. 



Between the various Polynesian languages a certain degree of relation has 

 been 'proved to exist, and this extends to Madagascar. Those ethnographers 

 ■who have given special attention to the subject, amongst the miost eminent of 

 whom are Marsden, Humboldt, Bopp, Hale, John Crawfurd, and J. P. Logan, 

 are somewhat divided in opinion on the origin and cause of this phenomenon, 

 one side maintaining a derivitive origin of the vaiious tribes from one common 

 stock, while the other adheres to the primordial tlieoiy of rude hordes 

 speaking ah imiio. languages of theij- own. Into these speculative subjects we 

 need not enter, as they do not materially affect the enquiry before us. Logan, 

 with the view of ascertaining generally the position of the insular languages 

 with reference to others, states (vol. iv. "Jour. E. I. Arch.") "that he compared 

 the structure of those of which he had a knowledge with the Burman, 

 Chinese, Tartarian, Thibeto-Indian, Older Indian, African, and American 

 groups, and made a comparative vocabulary, of little more than 300 words, 

 of 135 of the Indo-Pacific languages." These he partially compared with 150 

 continental languages that appeared to have connection with them. As a 

 general result of his investigations I may mention the following, that though 

 the enquiries, as a whole, proved far beyond the grasp of one person, after 

 discoursing on the various languages of Africa and Asia, he states, " tliat if 

 any oceanic language be examined it will be foiand to have strong resemblances 

 and even coincidences in words and strnctui-al traits to one or another 

 branch of all or several of the gi-eat linguistic families of Asia, bordering on 

 the ocean or intimately connected with the border natives — Lau, Chinese, 

 Japanese, Tartarian Thibeto-Indian, Burman, Old Indian, Syro-Arabian, 

 Ancient Egyptian, African, and even Iranian and American. The investiga- 

 tion of Ethnic evidence afforded by Oceanic languages is therefore exceedingly 

 complicated. One general conclusion is that tlie human history of the Indian 



