
SPEECH 73 
eentury. On the other hand Ilokano has spread com- 
paratively little into its own immediate hinterland, 
which is mountainous. 
On a wider view, it became apparent to scholars a 
century ago that all the East Indian languages bore 
abundant traces of a common origin with those of the 
Polynesian islands, far out in the Pacific. To this great 
family, denominated by the Malayo-Polynesian, the 
Melanesian and Micronesian tongues of the nearer parts 
of the Pacific were also found to belong. With the ex- 
ception of New Guinea, and Australia somewhat off 
to one side, all the languages of Oceania are therefore 
only varieties of one fundamental stock, the vast sweep 
of which reaches from Hawaii and Easter Island, front- 
ing the coast of America, to Madagascar near South 
Africa, or more than half way around the planet. 
More recently it has been asserted and accepted by 
many students that the Mon-Khmer group of languages 
of Indo-China, the Khasi of Assam, and the Munda of 
India proper, form part of the same great assemblage, 
to whose more inclusive extent the name Austronesian 
has been applied. The area added to the family by the 
addition of Mon-Khmer and Munda is not particularly 
large. The significance of the inclusion lies in the fact 
that it brings the Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian 
stock definitely on to the Asiatic mainland, and so 
suggests possible origins that remained obscure as 
long as the family seemed to be wholly oceanic and 
insular. 
Philippine speech thus is only a minute fragment of a 
widening series of circles: East Indian, Malayo- 
Polynesian, Oceanic, Austronesian. Its ultimate prob- 
lems are problems of these greater groups. Where 
language is common or akin, there must have been com- 
munication, perhaps original unity of the speakers; 

