220 THE LANGUAGES OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO; 
flexible and low behind ; in the tongue, a fluor, soft, fixed at 
the back but otherwise free, and of the most complex and 
perfect mobility; in the teeth and Ups, a double portal, the 
inner hard, fixed, and only requiring a hinge movement ver¬ 
tically, the outer soft, flexible, and requiring combined vertical 
and horizontal movements. For the production of vowels, 
the vocal chamber, by the mollusk-like motions of the tongue, 
is contracted in height and breadth, while the lips extend it in 
length anteriourly and vary the shape and size of the door. 
By the downward motion of the lower jaw the chamber can 
be thrown open, and an extraordinary capacity given to it by 
the consequent depression of the base of the floor. In some 
vocalic sounds this is availed of to a small extent- 
The sounds of all the vowels, in proportion as they are short¬ 
ened, approach each other, because the vocal breathing is 
checked near its origin in the larynx, and before it has been 
fully modulated by passing through the variable oral cavity- 
When very abrupt, they are hardly distinguishable, and hence 
their tendency to pass into each other. As every long vowel 
graduates into its short sound by a more or less direct passage, 
a communication is opened between the long vowels also, and 
it is only the peculiar musical or vocalic genius of each lan¬ 
guage, strongly impressing itself on the people who speak it, 
that can ensure in its words the perpetuation, through long 
periods of time, of the same vowels in their entire purity. 
Those languages, like the Bugis, which delight in the reso¬ 
nance of the full toned vowels, ought to be more permanent 
in this respect than those, like the more catholic Malay, which, 
with all its vocalic tendency, exhibits no decided repugnance 
to the weaker vowels. 
The natural order of the vowels, proceeding outwards, 
appears to be this—1st i and its modifications ; 2nd the sounds 
formed by different combination of i and a including e (— a 
& i fused) and its modifications; 3rd a and its modifications ; 
4th the combinations of a and u including o and its modifica¬ 
tions ; 5th u and its modifications, also those combinations in 
which it preponderates. 
w - r 
b b 1 - 
Vocal chamber narrowest and shortest; the lips are drawn 
aside, so that the anteriour part of the chamber from the teeth 
to the lips is removed, and the length reduced to a minimum ; 
the teeth, thus forming the orifice, approach each other, and 
the tongue approaches the palate, so that a very narrow pas¬ 
sage is left for the emission of the breath. 
