IN THE MALAY PENINSULA 23 



further in the matter, first because the subject is not at all fully 

 treated by Logan in his comprehensive philolog-ical sohem^ of 

 which indeed it forms but an insig-nificant part, and secondly 

 because considerable additions have been made since his day to 

 our knowledge of the dialects in question and new evidence 

 can therefore be adduced in support of his conclusions. I was 

 also impelled by the consideration that since Logan's time no- 

 thing, so far as I could discover, had been done either to confirm 

 or to controvert his views : his conclusions appear to have 

 been lost sight of or ignored by those who in recent times have 

 dealt with thebe matters. The result has been that several 

 of these authors have delivered themselves of the most extra- 

 ordinary dicta regarding the relation of the aboriginal dialects 

 to other languages, some* without any attempt at proof having- 

 asserted their connection with a variety of families of speech 

 with which, so far as is at present known, they have nothing 

 whatever to do, while others have been content to assert or 

 imply that no known element except the Malayan has as yet 

 been discovered in them. A perusal of Logan's articles in the 

 "Journal of the Indian Archipelago" will convince anyone that 

 the latter statement is incorrect. 



The purpose of this paper then, is to point out again, how- 

 ever imperfectly, a line of research which was opened by the 

 enquiries of Mr. J. R. Logan about forty years ago, but seems to 

 have been forgotten and never followed up, although the results 

 to which it may eventually lead might be expected to prove 

 most interesting. In general terms it may be called the study 

 of the early influence of the main-land of Indo-China on its out- 

 lying province, the Malay Peninsula, closely connected as they 

 are in geographical position but widely sundered at the present 

 day in regard to the ethnological and philological characteristics 

 of the greater part of their inhabitants. For many generations 

 the Peninsula has had intimate relations with Sumatra and in a 

 less degree with Java and Borneo, with all of which it has many 

 affinities; but, with the exception of the Siamese suzerainty over 

 the Northern States and provinces, it has had little to do of late 



4' E. g. Mr. Vaughan Stevens is reported by Mr. Clifford in J.S.B. 

 R. A. S. No. 24, to hare said that Sakai is allied to Tibetan. It would be 

 interesting to know what prompted this statement and on what evidence it 

 was made. 



