60 THE SAKAI AND SEMANG DIALECTS. 
where the persistence of the root (here shown in italics) is 
clearly seen in spite of the apparatus of prefixes or infixes added 
to it. Another similar case is:— 
kat PTS) Glin. Oyar 
khndt  ‘* measure” 
kiimnat ‘ piece” 
thkat  “ pain” 
tamkat ‘pain, suffering.” 
Analogous, though less elaborate, formations occur in several of 
the other Mon-Annam languages, and this system, it must be 
admitted bears a stronz resemblance to the mode of formation 
of the aboriginal dialects of the Peninsula. 
It must, however, be borne in mind that it also finds 
parallels in the Malayan family, some members of which (e.g. 
the Philippine languages ) have carried it to an even higher stage 
of complicated development. In fact the relation between the 
Malayan and Mon-\nnam families in this particular are very 
puzzling: there is so much similarity in their structure and so 
little, relatively speaking, in their material or lexicographical 
elements. I suppose it may be regarded as certain that these 
two families of speech formerly bordered on one another in 
Southern Indo-China (and possibly in the Peninsula too ) and, it 
would seem that while they were in contact the one group in 
some way exercised a profound influence on the other, probably 
in the way, mainly, of the Mon-Annam group absorbing Malayan 
ele nents, both material and formal. This makes it doubly 
difficult, in the case of the aboriginal dialects of the Peninsula 
which must have been evolved somewhere near the border line ~ 
of these two families, to decide to which, if either, of them they 
originally belonged, seeing that the mode of formation in both is 
so very similar. In the apparent absence of suffixes and in some 
other respects, however, it must be admitted that the aboriginal 
dialects offer more analogy to the Mon-Annam than to the 
Malayan family. 
After analysing these formal elements, the author runs 
through the various parts of speech in the Mon-Annam languages 
Jour. Straits Branch 
