108 ON THE MALAYAN AND POLYNESIAN 
Words or syllables, in the Philippine languages, may begin with 
the aspirate, but not end with it, which is exactly the reverse of 
what obtains in the Malay and Javanese. 
In the Philippine languages words may end, and very generally 
do, in consonants, as obtains in the Malay and J avanese, but con¬ 
trary to usual practice of the languages of the neighbouring island 
of Celebes. No consonant coalesces with another in the Philippine 
languages, with the exception of the liquids r and l, and these not 
often. 
In the Philippine languages, certain consonants follow others with¬ 
out the intervention of a vowel, which in Malay, and Javanese are 
never found to do so. The letter g, which very rarely ends a Ma¬ 
lay or Javanese word, is a very frequent termination of Philippine 
0 
ones. Of these two peculiarities the following are examples from 
the Bisaya language :— Lobiog, a jar ; yagbak , a rat; toltog, to 
pound ; tag , lord or master ; tuig, time; which are sounds utterly 
repugnant to Malay or Javanese pronunciation. 
Between the grammatical structures of the Malay and Javanese 
and the Philippine languages, there is a very wide difference. In 
order to illustrate the extent of it, I take the grammar of the Pam- 
panga, one of the six principal languages of Lugon, for an exam¬ 
ple.'* 
The noun is simple, or without any inflexion. As the author of 
the grammar says, it undergoes no more change than the Latin word 
genu. Relation, or case, is expressed by what the Spanish author 
of the grammar calls an article. This varies, or, more correctly, 
is a different word for each case. There is, besides, one kind of 
article for apellatives, and another for proper names. 
If the words thus called articles by the Spaniards be, as is pro¬ 
bable, only prepositions, then it must be observed that they bear no 
resemblance to any prepositions of the Malay or Javanese. . 
A still wider difference exists in the pronouns. The personal 
pronoun of the first person has two genitive cases, and three plurals: 
* Arte de la lengua Pampanga per Diego Bcrgano. Quarto, Manila. 
1736. 
