SIMILARITY WITH MALA YAN ROOTS. 147 



many of the useful arts, the most common actions, and the 

 most necessary articles of daily use. He thus shows that 

 the theory by which Crawfurd sought to account for the pre- 

 sence of the Malay element in Malagasy is utterly inadequate, 

 and that sailors from a small fleet of piratical proas, driven 

 by a storm across the Indian Ocean, could never have so 

 radically influenced the language of the country to which 

 they came as strangers. Not only are there numbers of 

 words in Malagasy derived from Malayan roots, but in the 

 grammar and structure of both there is remarkable similarity, 

 and also in the particles, pronouns, and adverbs, &c. 



Another curious circumstance connected with the language 

 of Madagascar is its substantial oneness all over the island. 

 It is well known that in many parts of Africa, in New 

 Guinea, and in other regions, the people of neighbouring 

 villages sometimes speak not merely varying dialects, but 

 even totally distinct languages. This fact makes it all the 

 more remarkable that in a vast island, nearly a thousand 

 miles long, a number of different tribes, often widely sepa- 

 rated from each other, should speak only one language. This, 

 however, is the case ; there are, it is true, a number of 

 dialects, but there are no traces of two or more different 

 languages of distinctly separate stock. 



Compared with many languages, Malagasy is certainly an 

 easily-learnt tongue. This arises partly from the simplicity 

 of its grammar, and the absence of those inflections which 

 are so perplexing in many languages, there being no changes 

 for number, gender, or person. And it is also due partly to 

 there being no fresh character to learn, as there is in almost 

 all Asiatic tongues. The Malagasy had no written language 

 before Europeans taught them the use of letters, so, of course, 

 the Eoman alphabet is used. Although some slight attempts 

 had been made by early Jesuit missionaries to prepare books, 

 to the missionaries of the London Missionary Society " belongs 

 the honour of having introduced the use of letters among the 

 Malagasy people," and of having given "the written form 

 of the language in use among them to the present day. The 

 two men who laid the foundation of this work were David 

 Jones and David Griffiths." 



