xxxvi Appendix. 



to gain. Subsequent writers discourage the idea, and the latest that I have 

 been able to consult (Griffiths) says the following of the connection : — " The 

 Malagasi bears some analogy to the Malay and the Arabic in the sound and 

 signification of many of the words, and in the inflection of certain verbs ; but 

 to say that on this account it is a dialect of either the Malay or the Arabic 

 would be as unreasonable as to say that the Arabic is a dialect of Hebrew, or 

 the Hebrew a dialect of the Arabic." On reading this opinion the thought 

 struck me that, as from my own personal knowledge the Malay has no affinity 

 to Arabic, the author in comparing Malagasi to two dissimilar things 

 might not have investigated either with the completeness necessary ; so, in 

 taking up Ellis' " Madagascar Revisited" and opening its pages at random, I 

 was struck with the strong resemblance of the beautiful woodcut giving the 

 portrait of a native, to the common cast of countenance foimd in the Indian 

 Archipelago amongst the Bajow, or Sea Malays. A copy of this (PI. I.) I am 

 enabled to show to the Society through the skill of Mr. Alexander McColl, 

 who has transferred it by the photo-lithogi-aphic process. Dipping further 

 into the work I found almost every fifth word to have Malayan affinities, and 

 coming to the capital, which I may take by way of example, I found it called 

 Antananarivo, or the City of a Thousand Towns or Villages. Now, allowing 

 for the differences of articulation, this is precisely, the same as the Malay 

 word Tana-saribu ; the word tanana in Malagasi, denuded of the prefix, being 

 used in a more restricted sense than it is generally in Malay — though even 

 here a Malay uses the word in a very restricted sense occasionally, as when 

 he talks of his tana bindang, or rice plot ; tana camjyongr, his village area, etc. 



Thus led on, I was induced to proceed with j)icking out the word fossils of 

 the language, i.e., so far as the excellent grammar of the E,ev. Mr. Griffiths 

 aiforded material. Out of this work I collected 146 words, as given below, 

 ninety-five of which proved to be Malayan, and eighty Malayo-Polynesian. 

 Of the list of words twenty-nine only had no equivalents. Of course it would 

 be improper were I not to remark that primary words alone were selected, and 

 not the secondary or tertiary that ai-e given in all dictionaiies. Again, 

 comparing the Malagasi words given below that are also found in Wallace's 

 and Earle's comparati^-e vocabularies of the Indian Archipelago, I found that 

 of forty-seven words forty-two had their equivalents in one or other, or several, 

 of the dialects and languages. Thus in the primary words — in the bases of 

 their languages — close affinity is clearly indicated. 



Instancing particular words in Malagasi, it is interesting to examine their 

 dispersion. Thus the word vorona, bird, is found in the Indian Archipelago 

 slightly altered to hurong, urong, etc., but the most iisual term is manok, manu, 

 manik, mano, etc. The former term is African, the other Asian; and in 

 examining the various vocabularies we see that one seems to have striven to 



