MARITIME CODE, 19 



Essay on the Malayan language, tnat the Arabians and Persians 

 have borrowed their present alphabetical characters from the Malays, 

 an opinion that could only hope to attract attention from the con- 

 fident manner in which it is asserted. The proofs that seem to hare 

 occurred to the writer of the language being from the primeval 

 stock of Java, and one of the sons of Japheth, the third son of Noah, 

 from the roots of the old Persian and the Sanscrit and Arabic 

 derivatives and compounds which have been formed, may as well 

 be adduced in supporting a similar comparison between the Eng- 

 lish and Latin tongues ; we should be rather surprised to find the- 

 former, from the number of ancient words it has adopted, asserted 

 to be the parent of the Eoman tongue. 



It is easy and natural to account for the Malays having, in 

 their religion, adopted the written character of the Arabs ; and I 

 have no hesitation in asserting, that neither Malay writings nor in- 

 scriptions, in their present character, can be traced back to periods 

 of greater antiquity than the alleged invention of the modern Arabic 

 alphabet, or beyond the epocli at which the great intercourse be- 

 tween the Arabian and the Eastern nations took place. Admitting 

 however, that more early writings did exist, there is no reason why 

 they may not have been preserved in Sumatra in the more ancient 

 and original characters of the Battas, the Eejangs, or theLampongs; 

 in Java and the Balatas, in the characters of the Javandore and 

 Bugis nations; and even in the Malay Peninsula, by a modified cha- 

 racter of the Siamese. 



Eor the component parts of the Malayan language, as it at 

 present exists, and the sources from whence we must trace the ori- 

 gin of the nation and its language, I beg to refer to the enlightened 

 statement, printed in the transactions, by the author of the "Essay 

 on the Indu-Chinese Nations," whose enlarged views and determined 

 position will, I am convinced, be the more confirmed and verified, in 

 the proportion that they may be enquired into. 



The most obvious and natural origin of the Malays, is that 

 they did not exist, as a separate and distinct nation, anterior to the 

 arrival of the Arabians in the Eastern Seas. At the present day 

 they seem to differ from the original nation from which they sprung, 

 in about the same degree as the Chuliah or Kling differs from the 

 Tamul or Telinga on the Coromandel Coast, or the Mapillas of Mar- 



