IN THE ISLAND OF BALI. 159^ 



Sanfcrit words are often applied. Many of the inhabitants of thefe 

 iilands were no doubt in a barbarous flate before they became ac- 

 quainted with the Hindus of India, and mufl: have wanted terms for 

 many ideas which a farther improvement has made famiUar to them. 

 Such they neceffirily borrowed from the Sanfcrit ; but the paucity 

 and the meagrenefs of the radical portion of their own languages in ge- 

 neral, is by no means fuch as ta convince us, that their condition in 

 fociety was extremely low and degraded previous to the improve^" 

 ment for which they ar^ indebted to the Hindus,, 



The Jaroaneje, though acq^uainted with the Sanfcrit numerals,- have 

 a clafs of numerals of their own y nay, a double clafs fuitable to the 

 rank of the fpeaken. With thefe they count as far as a thoufand, after 

 which they reckon by the Sanfcrit numerals as far as a hundred miU 

 lions. The Malay does the fame thing without going fo far. This 

 affords an example of the manner in which the vernacular languages 

 have borrowed from the Sanfcrit. Wordsj implying confiderablc abftrac- 

 tion indeed are generally borrowed from the Sanfcrit \ fo are terms 

 of fcience, with the language of Theology, and the names of arts, im- 

 plements^ and produdions, in the ufe o£ which the inhabi'ants of thefe 

 iflands have been inftrud^^d by the Hindus. Such words a& exprefs 

 thofe ordinary feelings and fecial relations common to- our fpecies as 

 abflraded from thofe refulting from peculiarity of manners and cuf- 

 toms, and from the knowledge of the arts of cultivated life, w ill in ge- 

 neral be found to be exprefled by native terms. That fuch ideas are 

 oh^n expvcKed by Sanfcrit v^ords is fully admitted; but if I am not 

 milbken, it iis feldom that native fynonymes, are wanting for the 

 fame words. In thefe languages, as in all others, a foreign term is 

 often preferred to a native one, for which no reafon can be aiTigned 

 unlefs the whim of fafhion and the love of innovation be admitted as 

 Juch« Sometimes the native term becomes obfolete, and once becoming 



