214 
ON THE MALAYAN AND POLYNESIAN 
selves, are Malayan ; the word for thousand, mam , certainly is not. 
In the Lampung of Sumatra, a written language, the term for this 
last number is the same which means an “ iron nail or spike.” 
For the numbers above 1000, the Malayan system has borrowed 
from the Sanscrit; and the Javanese, but it alone, goes as far with 
the higher numerals as “ fen billions.” There are two remarkable 
misapplications of the Sanscrit numbers: the Laksa and Kati, the 
well-known lac and krove which ought to express a hundred thou¬ 
sand and ten millions, express, through all the cultivated languages 
of the Archipelago, “ ten thousand” and “ a hundred thousand” 
only. 
From the explanation now given, I think it must be sufficiently 
obvious that the Malayan numerals afford no evidence whatever of 
the existence of one great original language. They seem simply, 
and as opportunity offered, to have been adopted as a matter of con¬ 
venience—in some cases in their entheness, but for the most part 
only partially. 
Among the words of Malayan most generally diffused, and consi¬ 
dered to be of the class representing the most simple and primitive 
ideas, are the terms for “ man,” “ bird,” “ fish,” &c.; but these 
are obviously general or abstract terms, and, necessarily, coukl not 
have been among the first invented. The Australians, according to 
Mr. Eyre, have no such terms.* It may be conjectured, indeed, 
that the want of them in the ruder languages, both of the Archipe¬ 
lago and Pacific, is one cause of the frequent occurrence of such 
words from the Malayan as kayu, “tree” or “timber buali, “fruit 
buna, “ flower;” and manuk, “ a bird.” 
The very first word of Mr. Marsden’s list, “ man,” occurs in its 
Malay form of or an only in two other languages of the Archipelago, 
the Madura and A chin, and these are known to have received more 
Malay than any others; while in the many languages of the Pacific 
it does not occur at all. On the other hand, two Sanscrit words hav¬ 
ing the same meaning represent the same idea in no less than ten 
languages of Mr, Marsden’s own list. 
* Discoveries in Central Australia, by John Edward Eyre, London. 1815* 
