DR. BRANDbTETTER'S RLSl'ARCHLS, 



213 



duced to a mere remnant, whereas some of these languages have 

 preserved it in something like its primitive luxuriance. In this 

 respect Tagal and Malagasy are more archaic than Malay, 

 example will best explain what is meant. The Malay , 

 " writing," is represented in Tagal by sulat, in Malagas 



soratra (Malagasy o is pronounced u). 

 This verb can be conjugated 

 guages : — 



An 



surat 



alagasy by 



thus in these two Ian- 





Tagal. 



Malagasy. 



Present 



nanunulat 



manoratra 



Preterite 



nanulat 



nanoratra 



Future 



manunulat 



hanoratra 



Imperative 



manulat 

 Passive. 



manarata 





Tagal. 



Malagasy 



Present 



sinusulatan 



soratana 



Preterit* 



sinulatan 



nosoratana 



Future 



susulatan 



hosoratana 



Imperative 



sulatan 



soraty * 



Here, besides prefixes and suffixes, infixes and reduplication 

 play, in Tagal, a great part. 



It is not necessary to add here, by way of contrast, the 

 meagre list of variations which the Malay verb usually assumes : 

 they will be familiar to the reader. Apart from these, there 

 are in Malay (as Dr. Luering pointed out in No. 39 of this Jour- 

 nal) a few scattered survivals which show that the language for- 

 merly had a more fully elaborated system of agglutination than it 

 now possesses. 



The comparison of some of the words common to Tagal 

 and Malagasy (of which Brandstetter gives a remarkably long 

 and interesting list) shows that in some cases a form more 

 archaic than that of Malay must be inferred as the common 

 original. 1 hus, for instance, it is practically certain that " fire " 



* y—i, as in English at the end of a word 

 was invented by English missionaries. 



R. A. SOc.,No. 42, 1904. 



Malagasy spelling 



