ON THE LANGUAGES OF OCEANIA. 365 
by Prideaux in the Journal of the Society of Biblical Archeology. 
For the Mahri see the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the 
Royal Asiatic Society, July 1847, Vol. 11., “‘ Notes on the Mahra 
Tribe of South Arabia,” by Dr. H. J. Carter ; and especially H. 
F. von Maltzan’s papers on the Mahri dialect. In the Himyaritic 
numerals found in the inscriptions the final m, sometimes attached 
and sometimes not, is the Semitic ‘mimation,’ which, according to 
Halevy, is an indefinite article, and analogous to the Arabic ‘nuna- 
tion,’ or finalm. This it is necessary to mention here, because the 
same finals, in the writer’s opinion, occur in the Malay and Mala- 
gasy anam, enina, 6, and in the Tagala siam, 9, Mallicolo heppr 
(m top), Malagasy sy, Samoan iva (m tov), Java sanga (m to ng). 
A peculiarity of the Semitic languages is that the feminine 
or abstract form of the numerals from ‘three’ to ‘ten’ was used 
with masculine nouns, and therefore became the common and 
prevailing form. We should expect accordingly that the Oceanic 
numerals, if they are from Arabia, will exhibit traces of this pecu- 
liarity. The feminine form was distinguished by a suffixed ¢, 
which, however(as may be seen by comparing the Semitic numerals, 
ancient and modern, as given above, which from three to ten are all 
in the feminine form), often degenerated into /, or a mere breath- 
ing, or disappears altogether as a consonant. Now, the Oceanic 
numerals, this ¢ of the ancient feminine form is distinctly pre 
served in all the dialects in the word for 7 (bitu, pitw); and in 
all, except the Samoan, in the word for 4, efatra, fat, vati, papat, 
Malay ampat. 
In the Mahri and Sokotran words for 6, 7, and 9, the original 
initial consonants (s and ¢) are elided, as they are also in the same 
words in all the Oceanic dialects given above, unless the Santo 
tsiwo be held to preserve the original ¢ before the sin the word for 
9. In the Oceanic also the initial ¢ is elided in the word for 2, 
as may be seen by comparing Mahri ¢tharo, Sokotran tarawah, 
Syrian ?’rai, with Java ro, (common) rua: in Efate, however, rua 
is often pronounced ¢rwa in which the ¢ may represent the original 
initial ¢. 
