S LANGUAGES OF SOUTHERN INDO-CHINA. 



In eight and nine there is some confusion, which may be due 

 either to the collector or to the wild tribes themselves ; possibly 

 the latter get a little mixed when they come to the higher 

 numbers. Anyhow, they are said to use for eight a form 

 salapan which occurs again in Sundanese (Java) and also in 

 Mangkasar (Macassar, of Celebes), in the latter under the form 

 salapang, and there means, as it ought to mean, nine. Oddly 

 enough, the Minangkabau Malays use it, interchangeably with 

 dulapan (delapan), and also make it mean eight. Vice versa, 

 these wild tribes use variants of the Malay and Achinese form 

 of eight for nine. Cham, it is to be observed, uses both forms 

 correctly, but has also another form for nine, viz., Samilan > 

 the Malay Sambilan (Sembilon), which may perhaps be merely a 

 loan word from Malay itself. 



There has been, in historical times, a Malay immigration 

 from Sumatra (and particularly, it seems, from Minangkabau) 

 into Camboja (where this form Samilan is used) and the Cham 

 and Malay communities in that country, though distinct, are in 

 close contact with each other, and being of one religion some- 

 times intermarry. 



It is noticeable that Selung differs from the other dialects 

 in having preserved, though in rather uncouth shape, the original 

 Malay o-Polynesian forms for eight (ivalu) and nine (shva). 



In the forms for ten these dialects agree substantially with 

 the Achinese peluh, in shortening the first syllable ; this does not, 

 apparently, occur in the Bornean dialects, which in other re- 

 spects show a fairly close resemblance in their numeral systems. 



For eleven and upwards the dialects agree amongst them- 

 selves and with some of the Bornean dialects, but differ from 

 Malay, Achinese, Javanese, etc., in not using forms compounded 

 with -belas (originally -ivalas, the Malay ba/as, " to repay," with 

 the meaning " to return," i.e. to the hand on which the count- 

 ing was first began). 



The Selung for "hundred" apparently has the prefix sa- 

 " one " reduced to a, which occurs also in a Cham subdialect as 

 ha-. For the -I- of Selung yahloam, Malay jarum, " needle." 



Thus while there are here particular words agreeing, each 

 with some different Malayan languageor group of languages, 



Jour. Straits Branch, 



