144 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
be read with great interest by the student. The author states 
that all the dialects of the independent tribes which he visited 
belong to a family of languages which he calls Malayo-Polyne- 
sian. This result is the more important as it tends to throw 
some little h¢ht onthe approximation which some have found 
between the Japanese language and the Polynesian. In Ja- 
panese, Malay words and a Malay structure are also slightly 
perceptible. What if the Polynesian races are the ultimate 
dispersion’ of a race which once spread over and peopled the 
east even as far as Japan? In the Philippines Dr. Montano 
takes Tagaloe as the type, comprising under that group the 
Bicol and Bisaya dialects. They are almost as distinct from 
each other as they are from the Malay, but yet they are all of 
Maiay origin beyond a doubt. | 
~The author says that in all these languages or dialects there 
are no such things as parts of speech properly speaking. Theo- 
ret ae all the words may be considered as roots and by them- 
selves having no more than avague sense. ‘Their value as sub- 
ject or object verb or quality is determined by afiixes and 
suffixes less numerous in Malay than in the Tagaloe dialects, 
where their use is extremely complicated. This renders the 
lancuage dificult for Europeans. Yet most of the monks ee 
it fuen ‘ly, and they have amped so many and such excellen 
grammars and dictionaries of all the dialects that the study of 
them and the elucidation of their history is much facilitated.. 
The Negritos have no language of their own, at least now in 
the Philippines. They speak a corrupted Tagaloe. It isa 
pity that we know so little of the language of our Sakeis. Mr. 
J. K. pe ua CRorx has published something on the subject (Jour- 
nal of the Anthropological sees August and November, 
1882), and we may hope that before long some of the officers of 
Government in the Malay Seach will take the matter up. 
Dr. Montano gives very full vocabularies of Malay, ‘Tagaloe, 
Bisaya, Buled- -Upih, Negrito, Samal; Manobo, Bagobo, Tageacao- 
lo, Bilan, and Atas. ‘The last five are small tribes in Mindanao 
with very distinct dialects. Buled-Upih is the lauguage of the 
natives on the Kinabatangan River in north-east Borneo. The 
orthography of the Malay given in this book is peculiar, and 
adds one more to the ways of rendering that language accessible 
