186 
THE ISLAND OF C 
served in its greatest purity, contains a considerable mixture 
of Arabic, and is accounted the most elegant as well as the 
most smooth and sonorous. The learned will judge of the 
inference to be drawn from the Arabic forming so consider- 
able a portion of the Ceylonese language in those parts 
where it is spoken in its original purity. The current opinion 
among the natives is, that Arabic is their original language* 
and that some mixture of the Sanscrit was introduced by a 
colony who came over by Adam’s bridge from the conti- 
nent of India. Among the Cinglese on the coasts, the vul- 
gar dialect, distinguished by the name of the Chiglese , is 
spoken : it has been greatly corrupted by the introduction of 
foreign words, and that melody and force which is attributed 
to the language of the interior, is here no longer discernible. 
If I may judge from the impression made upon me during 
my residence on the island, the Cinglese spoken on the coasts 
is much inferior to any of the other Indian languages w hich 
I have heard. 
The hyperbolical strain of compliment and adulation which 
is common to all the Asiatic nations, is found no where in 
greater perfection than in the island of Ceylon. There is 
here a degree of punctilious minuteness with which the 
phraseology employed is exactly adjusted to the rank of 
the person addressed, that altogether astonishes an European. 
There is no impropriety which a man can be guilty of more 
unpardonable in their eyes, than addressing a superior in 
language that is only fit for an equal or an inferior. 
