50 EARLY INDO-CHINESE INFLUENCE 



As to the first four numbers, no difficulties arise : except for 

 the Malay form of two in the Johor and Serting dialects, they 

 correspond well enough in all the lists ; but the Johor and Ser- 

 ting numerals iov five and six and the Johor word for seven, are 

 evidently the same as the Peguan forms and do not correspond 

 either with the old or the modern Cambojan. On the other hand 

 they agree fairly well with most of the forms in Cuoi, Prou and 

 Ka, which from their geographical position can hardly claim a 

 Peguan parentage. 



It is clear therefore that the Mon-Annam element in the dia- 

 lects of the Peninsula points back to a very ancient connection ; 

 and as there is so much in common between them and both Mon 

 on the one hand and Khmer on the other, possibly the best ex- 

 planation of the matter is that the Indo-Chinese words in them 

 must be referred to the speech of the former inhabitants of the 

 lowei Menam valley, which lies between the modern Peguan and 

 Cambojan language -fields and which may therefore not unreason- 

 ably be presumed to have stood midway between them in linguis- 

 tic characteristics. It is also the part of Indo-China from which 

 access to the Peninsula is easiest ; and to this day a portion of the 

 Peninsula to some extent owns the supremacy of that region. 



At this point, therefore, my inferences from purely linguis- 

 tic evidence must stop and I should be content to end this paper 

 here, but for the corroboration which can be adduced from other 

 sources and which slight as it is, it seems desirable to mention. 

 In the Chinese chronicles of the Liang dynasty (A. D. 502-556) 

 ^'' under the headmg Tun-Sun we find the following entry: — 

 "More .than 3000 li to the south of Fu-nan there is the 

 country Tun-Sun ; ^ ^ it is situated on a Peninsula more than 

 a thousand li in extent, and the capital is ten li (about three miles) 

 away from the sea. There are five kings, who all acknowledge 

 the supremacy of Fu-nan." 



Now all we really know of Fu-nan is that it was a large 

 kingdom situated on the southern coast of Indo-China^^ and 

 inhabited by a people somewhat darker than the Chinese who 



37. Indo-Chinese Essays, series ii, vol. i, p. 239. 



38. Cp. ib. p. 248. In the history of the Ming dynasty, "Malacca 



is supposed to be the old country Tun- Sun and the Kora Fusa of the 



T'ang dynasty. " 



39. Forbes op. cit. pp. 43-47. 



