204 THE LANGUAGES OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO* 
in the class of languages in question those connections which, 
in many-nther classes, are frequently appreciated by the edu¬ 
cated only, and of which a correct knowledge is sometimes even 
confined to philologists, are familiar to every individual. The 
artifices by which modifications of grammatical form are 
produced are still so external and glaring that they are neither 
hidden themselves nor serve to obscure. They are a 
common property to learned and unlearned, and the child 
appropriates and uses them with as keen a sense of their 
distinctive values and functions as he acquires of any substan¬ 
tive words. In most cases they are simply stuck on to the 
words which they modify, and when they are fairly engrafted 
or mortised, the excision necessary to effect this, is so 
slight and so uniform, that the original shapes of the 
component words are seldom lost sight of. In the 
Malay, for instance, words were not primarily distinguish- 
ed in their form as verbs, nouns &c. nor were there any 
grammatical indications of time, mood, &c. The degree 
of artificial structure which this language has received has 
not been carried so far as to obliterate or even conceal its 
original and essential baldness and simplicity. The word 
itself indicative of the primary idea still stands out naked and 
unaltered under nearly all grammatical variations. By parti¬ 
cles prefixed and suffixed, by adverbs and by reduplications, 
the means of distinguishing the nominal, qualitive and asser¬ 
tive forms of a word, and of denoting voice, mood* and tensef 
have been supplied; but even in composition the writer occa¬ 
sionally dispenses with them and expresses himself in the old 
and rude method; the under current of ideas which guided 
his pen being supposed to be reproduced in the mind of the 
reader, so as to bear him on without the necessity of constant 
grammatical aid. A highly cultivated language becomes, in 
written compositions, at once very complete and very artificial. 
This reacts to a certain extent on the oral language, which, in 
grave discourse, assimilates closely to the written, but in com¬ 
mon conversation retains more simplicity. In a little culti¬ 
vated tongue the written language leans more on the oral. It 
has not so much departed from it as to be complete in itself 
and independent of the aid of the voice. The oral therefore 
must be studied in order to understand the real character of the 
written. Mr Marsden’s grammar is chiefly defective from this 
* As transitive; intransitive including (a) active (b) passive (c) active and 
passive combined or reciprocal ; causal; intensive. 
f The Malay verb not only distinguishes the ordinary relations to time, i. e. 
present, future and several degrees of past, but also frequency, continuity and 
permanency of action. 
