LANGUAGES AND RACES. 
201* 
consonants seem to be b, c, d, g, k, l, m, n,p, r, s , t, v, w, and z, 
tog-ether with a sound represented by Mr. Jukes as dh, dz, and j. 
If there be such sounds, it is clear that these are really three distinct 
consonants, and that if these people had invented an alphabet, each 
would have its distinct character. If this be the case, there are IB 
consonants, over and above the aspirate, which these languages have. 
In all these languages, I find but one word whieh is Malay, and 
even this is confined to a single language, that of Masseid or York 
Island. This is mantle, which the natives applied to the domestic 
fowl which they saw in the hen-coops of the Fly, for they have none 
of their own. The word is, no doubt, a corruption of the wide¬ 
spread Malayan manuk , and probably borrowed from New Guinea, 
which the natives of the islands of Torres Straits appear sometimes 
to visit. There are two other words which are very doubtful. In 
two of the languages, the cocoa-nut is called boonarri, which may 
be a corruption of the Malay words bitaJi hur, or the fruit of the co¬ 
coa-nut ; and in a third the same object is called woo which may be 
a corruption of the Malay baali, or in Javanese ivoh, £C fruit” or 
(i the fruit.” 
Comparing the languages of the islands in Torres Straits with 
those of Malicolo, Tanna, and New Caledonia there are certainly 
no two words in common between them. Even the numerals are 
wholly different; and while the Polynesian negroes count as far as 
10, the Torre’s Straits islanders can proceed no further than 6, and 
even this only by multiplying one and two. 
From the details which have now been given, it will be seen that 
Malay and Javanese words, as I stated before, have found their way 
into the languages of the Archipelago and Pacific, or other neigh¬ 
bourhood, in proportion to facility or difficulty of communication 
with the parent countries of these two languages, Sumatra and Java. 
The facilities and difficulties have consisted—of proximity or dis¬ 
tance, geographical and navigable ; of similarity or dissimilarity of 
race,—of similarity or dissimilarity of lingual idiom , and of attrac- 
• • 
tion or repulsion from disparity in the condition of civilization. 
The influx of Malay and Javanese words will be found large in 
