212 
OX THE MALAYAN AND POLYNESIAN 
and Javanese, yet out of forty-eight words, the Tambora contains but 
two words, bulu, “ a hair/’ makcm, “ to eat.”* 
Another example, although not so striking a one, is afforded by 
the language of the Pelew or Pilu Islands, inhabited by a brown - 
complexioned and lank-haired race, and not more than eight degrees 
east of the Philippine group. In 658 words of it, I can discover 
only three which are Malayan. Yet a considerable number of Ma¬ 
layan words are found in the language of the Bashee Islands, and in 
that of the native inhabitants of Formosa ; and a still larger in the 
Sandwich Island dialect of the Polynesian, ten times as far from the 
Philippine as the Pelew gi oup.f 
An argument in favour of one original tongue has been attempted 
to be deduced from the supposition that the Malayan words, so wide¬ 
ly dispersed, express, in most cases, the simplest and earliest ideas 
of mankind. My friend the late Mr. Marsden, with his usual good 
faith, has given a list of 34 such words in 72 languages, on which, 
with other words of the same imagined class, I shall offer a few ob¬ 
servations.;!: 
Among the words imagined to express a simple and primitive 
class of ideas, the numerals have been much insisted on. It is ob¬ 
vious enough, however, that the numerals, especially a decimal se¬ 
ries of them extending like the Malayan, to 1000, are far from be¬ 
ing words expressing such a class of ideas. On the contrary, they 
must be the invention of a comparatively advanced period of civili¬ 
zation. Thus, among the many languages of Australia, the inhabi¬ 
tants of which are far below the humblest of those of the Indian and 
Pacific islands, there is not one that has numerals going beyond 
te four,” and even the last number is attained only by doubling a 
dual. 
But there are some languages of the Archipelago and Pacific Is? 
* It was in the country of the people of Tambora that, took place the 
greatest volcanic eruption on record, that of 1814 j and the nation is said lo 
have been nearly destroyed by it. 
f Account of the Pelew Islands from the Journals of Captain Henry Wil¬ 
son, by George Keate, Esq. London, 1788- 
i « On the Polynesian or East Insular Languages.” Miscellaneous 
Works. 1834. 
