164 FROM CENTRAL INDTA TO POLYNESIA. 



It is true that long before the period referred to attempts 

 had been made to include some of these unsorted items in the 

 regular system of classification which comparative philology 

 endeavours to achieve. Beginning more than half a century 

 ago with Logan's suggestive but too speculative dissertations, 

 it has pretty frequently been pointed out that there are some 

 apparent points of resemblance, if not of connexion, between 

 several of these linguistic derelicts. But as often as a con- 

 nexion was asserted by one scholar it was denied by another ; 

 and as strict proof was not (and in most cases, owing to the 

 inadequacy of the available evidence, could not be) offered, the 

 matter remained unsettled. Of late years additional material 

 for the study of most of these languages has been collected, 

 making it possible to undertake a more systematic investigation 

 into their peculiarities and mutual relations. On this latter 

 task Professor Schmidt has been engaged for some time past. 

 Starting with the conclusions arrived at by Kuhn in his valu- 

 able " Beitrage zur Sprachenkunde Hinterindiens," (") that 

 there is a common element running through these different 

 languages but that it would be rash to group them all in one 

 family, Professor Schmidt began in his monograph " Die 

 Sprachen der Sakei und Semang auf Malakka und ihr Verhalt- 

 nis zu den Mon-Khmer-Sprachen " ( J ) with an enquiry into 

 the Sakai and Semang dialects of the Malay Peninsula and 

 their relations to the most ancient group of Southern Indo- 

 Chinese languages. 



This important paper was reviewed at some length in No. 

 39 of this Journal : it suffices to say here that it claimed to 

 establish by strict proof a real genealogical relationship between 

 these two groups of languages, the Southern Indo-Chinese and 

 the Peninsular. In the year 1905 the learned author followed 

 it up with two more studies in the same line of research. His 



(3) Sitzungsberichte d. K. Bayer. Akad. d. Wissensch., Phil. -hist. 

 Kl., 1889, I, p. 219 seq. 



(4) Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenknnde van Neder- 

 landsch-Indie. Ge Volgreeks, 8e Deel (Deel LTI), 1901. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



