26 SOME NOTES ON THE SAKAI DIALECTS. 



which in no point is similar with anything found in Sakai or 

 Semang. The language spoken by the latter people I hope 

 to be able to connect with the inhabitants of the Andaman 

 Islands. The physical characteristics of the two people are 

 strikingly similar, and a comparison of their dialects will be 

 full of interest. It would be somewhat premature, however, to 

 do more than study the Sakai dialects themselves, and, as already 

 stated, I have not hitherto succeeded in finding a single root 

 in common in any of the vocabularies ( including that of the 

 Veddahs of Ceylon, which would appear to be a bastard Indian 

 dialect) which I have as yet been able to examine. 



There is yet another point on which I should wish to touch 

 before concluding these notes. I refer to the connection be- 

 tween Sakai and Malay. In the introduction to his Malay 

 Manual, Mr. W. E. Maxwell has propounded a theory to 

 the effect that some Malay roots may possibly be derived from 

 Sakai. He says : — u Another characteristic list of words might 

 " be made compounded with the monosyllable Tang ( which in 

 "Sakai and Semang means 'hand'), and conveying an idea 

 " of seizing or holding. Tang-an=the hand ; Tang-kap=to 

 " seize," &c, &c. 



Now, in Sen-oi the word for "hand" is Terk n and in Tern- 

 be' it is Pih. Semang dialects are absolutely distinct from 

 Sakai, having but few roots in common, and in no dialect 

 that I know does the word Tang occur meaning a "hand." 

 This being so, I should be disinclined to accept Mr. MAXWELL'S 

 theory, the more so as there is much evidence to prove that 

 at the time the Malays first penetrated into the Peninsula and 

 other Malay countries, they spoke a language which, both in 

 its words and in the rules by which its substantives were 

 formed, did not differ appreciably from the Malay of to-day. 



The names duri-an, the thorny fruit, rambut-an, the hairy 

 fruit, and pulas-an y the twisted fruit, were all given to the 

 fruits in question (which are indigenous in the Malay coun- 

 tries alone ) by a people in whose language the words duri, a 

 thorn, rambut, hair, and pulas, to twist, were all accepted 

 terms, and at a period when the inseparable affix an had come 

 to be employed for the formation of substantives as it is to the 



