166 FROM CENTRAL INDIA TO POLYNESIA. 



is a considerable common element, as lie shows, in the voca- 

 bularies of all these different groups of languages and also a 

 good deal of similarity in the way they use their prefixes and 

 infixes. Professor Schmidt claims, therefore, to have made 

 out their common origin and connexion as a new family of 

 languages, which he proposes to call the " Austroasiatic " 

 family on account of the geographical position of its members, 

 lying as they do scattered over the south-eastern corner of the 

 Asiatic continent. This family is to include all the above 

 mentioned languages, extending from Central India to the 

 Malay Peninsula, inclusive. 



So far, this result may be said to embody and confirm 

 Conclusions the probability of which had already been ten- 

 tatively foreshadowed by previous investigators. Professor 

 Schmidt has accumulated fresh evidence in their favour and 

 invested them with a much higher degree of probability. He 

 now proceeds to take a further step, by connecting his 

 " Austroasiatic " family of languages with the great Malayo- 

 Polynesian family (as it has hitherto been called), to which 

 Malay and the other languages of Indonesia, Polynesia and 

 Melanesia (with the exception of the Papuan languages) belong. 

 Thus, if this view be tenable, Sakai and Malay would after all 

 be real, though very distant, relations; linguistically. 



This is indeed a bold conception ; but in order to appreci- 

 ate the value of it, the evidence on wbich it rests must be con- 

 sidered and for that purpose the article itself must be consulted. 

 No attempt can be made to reproduce its details here. Suffice 

 it to say that in its main lines this conclusion is based on the 

 recognised and generally accepted results of the comparative 

 study of the Malayo-Polynesian languages and is an attempt 

 to carry that line of investigation to its logical outcome. These 

 languages in their present stage of development are' (as is well 

 known) made up of stem-words which are mostly of two syl- 

 lables. There would seem therefore to be a fundamental differ- 

 ence between their structure and that of the "Austroasiatic" 

 tongues with their monosyllabic roots. But research into the 

 Malayo-Polynesian languages has shown that in very many 

 cases their stem -words have been built up from earlier.monosyl- 



Jour. Straits Branch 



