DIALECTS OF THE MELANESIAN TRIBES IN THE 

 MALAY PENINSULA. 



[Being Extracts from two Letters to H. E. Otto. Bd%llingh 



Member of the " Imperial Academy of Sciences at 



St. Petersburg:' ) 



BY 



Miklucho-Maclay. 



[ Translated from the German. ] 



Read at a Meeting of the Society, held on the 6lh May, 1878. 



|~ Extract from Letter I. ] 



" My desire to know something" about the inhabitants of the 

 interior of the Malay Peninsula, and to ascertain their position 

 in relation to Anthropology, induced me to undertake this 

 journey into the Peninsula. It also appeared to me of impor- 

 tance not to delay it, for I know from my own experience that 

 the solution of this problem will become more difficult as time 

 elapses, and we shall only reach what is likely to prove less and 

 less reliable as a point d/appui for satisfactory conclusions. 

 For example, the original language of the Orang Titan ( 1 ) of 

 Johor, is constantly becoming more and more displaced by 

 Malay. Not only is it disappearing year by year, but the death 

 of every old man (acquainted to some extent with the language of 

 his forefathers) creates a fresh gap never to be filled up. 



This decline of the tongue, which precedes the gradual mo- 

 dification of the anatomical type, induced me to collect what 

 does remain very carefully, in order to secure it before its com- 

 plete destruction. 



During mv excursion in the Peninsula whenever I came across 

 a number of men I gathered them round me, and listening at- 

 tentively to them I took down as many words as possible that 

 were not Malay. In order to collect the following scanty voca- 

 bulary I always held quite a " Council," for only a few old 



1 Orang Utan is the usual expression among the Malays in speaking of 

 the wandering tribes in the interior of the Malay Peninsula. 



