292 — ON THE ROOTS IN THE MALAY LANGUAGE. 
Competent authorities on the Indo-Germanic, in speaking of 
the roots in these languages, inform us that they really existed 
only at that period when the various branches had not yet 
separated themselves from the parent stock. As to their form 
at that date, and whether it was monosyllabic or dissyllabic, 
this has not yet been satisfactorily settled or ag reed upon. 
Now in the Malay languages it is altogether different ; here we 
continually meet with “them as significant t, current words, for 
which reason they may be justly classified as “ root-words ; ” 
but these latter must not be confounded with such as we are 
accustomed to look upon as primitives or radical words in con- 
sideration of the derivatives obtamed fom them, because these 
same primitives, when dissyllabic (their usual form m), may often 
be readily recognised as constituting compound words which, 
on being resolved, prove to be nothing more than the product 
resulting from the combination of two simple elements or par- 
ticles not yet entirely lost to the language or obsolete for col- 
loquial purposes ; it is to these simple elements that we have 
to look for the true roots. As for applying the information 
obtained to any one branch in particular or comparing the 
same with any other languages except such as belong to the 
Malay group, this we leave to further investigation to accom- 
plish, flattermg ourselves that some hght will presently be 
cast upon cer tain points of interest to Philology i in general and 
which may, possibly, be turned to good account. 
Too much, however, should not be expected. In entering 
upon the subject concerning the origin of Malay words, we 
would, by way of preface, mentign that in this discourse we have 
principally availed ourselves of a certain source which, although 
exceedingly rich in itself, cannot be said to have entirely Gx 
cluded the others: we are here referring to “ verbal reproduc- 
tions of sound.”? The Malay languages are remarkably rich in 
“tone-Imitative-words” and, in accounting for this wealth, it 
is necessary once more to have recourse to the argument that 
it is here a question of an aboriginal people who have acquir- 
ed an ear sensible to the minutest distinctions of sound, such 
as would be almost, if not quite, imperceptible to ourselves. 
The facility and acuteness with which the Malay is capable of 
distinguishing between slight variations in tone, is indeed re- © 
