THE LANGUAGES OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 213 
The languages of the Archipelago begin to be emasculated 
about the 115th degree of longitude, or on the western shores 
of Celebes and the adjacent eastern coast of Bor'neo, and the 
island of Sumbavva. Up to this limit the more consonantal 
languages of Sumatra, Java, Borneo* and the Phillippines exist 
in full vigour, although all possessing a strong vocalic tendency. 
In the western languages of Celebes the terminal ng and k 
are preserved, the double letters nk, mp, nr and nek are added 
to the alphabet, and the consonants, particularly the liquid r, 
1, n, are strongly intonated, but they all pass into full vowel 
sounds, the i, a, e, o, or u, terminating nearly every syllable. 
It is this decided character which renders the Bugis the most 
musical and harmonic of all the languages of the Archipelago. 
It possesses a fullness and vitality of sound, a mingled sweet¬ 
ness and strength, which no others do save those nearly rela¬ 
ted to it. In reading it each breathing carries the voice over 
five syllables, of which the first three have the tone natural, 
the fourth elevated and prolonged, and the fifth further raised 
but short, fn the south eastern parts of Celebes and its 
islands, and in the Timorean chain, the terminal ng and k are 
rejected, the vocalic change is in other respects complete, and 
we seem to be already in the heart of Polynesia.! It is ob¬ 
vious that unaccented characters are absolutely necessary to 
express those vowel sounds which form almost every second 
letter, in the numerous dialects which exist in this portion of 
the Archipe’ago. 
Mr. Marsden’s method of writing Malay words approxi¬ 
mates in simplicity to Sir W. Jones’ Indian system, but it is 
not uniform, nor sufficiently exact. In practice he expresses 
the a of Jones by the unaccented a of the European continent, 
although in his scheme he also uses the short prosodial mark 
for the same purpose ; but in representing the two other 
principal vowel sounds, he uses accents, while still adhering to 
the continental pronunciation. It is a foretaste of the somewhat 
careless orthography which we detect in the body of bis Ma¬ 
layan Dictionary that, in explaining bis system, he omits the 
most common sound of the second vowel, the d of Sir W 
Jones (Preface p x). In the Dictionary we commonly find e for 
* The Boraeon dialects have a strong tincture both of the Phillippine and 
Sumatran languages. Madurese and Javanese have spread into them from the 
south. 
t Many emigrants from Bntan (Butu according lo them) Ende &c. who 
have resided for years in Singapore still give their native vocalism to the 
Malay. Thus the words banya. orang svda pvtlang, which the Bugis finds in 
full accordance with his own vocalism, aie pronounced by them bana oi'asuda 
pula. Pisaug di makan kambing becomes pisa di muka Iambi, 
Z 
