tANGUAGE OP lt.VCES 
215 
The members and other parts of an animal body, natural objects, 
such as water, fire, earth, a stone, sun, moon, stars, do really repre¬ 
sent the earliest and simplest ideas, but their wide dissemination is 
easily enough accounted for. In fact, they are, for the most part, 
only synonymes, along with native terms, or, at best, words that 
have, in the lapse of time, displaced the latter, as they have them¬ 
selves been frequently displaced by Sanscrit words. 
To give a few examples: in the Malagas!, besides the Malayan 
word, there is one native word for “the sky,” there are two for “ the 
tongue,” two for “ a stone,” four for “ fire,” live for “ the eye,” 
five for “ the head,” and seven for the verb “ to die.” 
In the Bisaya of the Philippines, there are, besides the Malayan 
words, two native ones for “ a stone,” two for “ earth,” four for 
<( shore” or “ beach,” and six for “ air” or “ wind.” 
In the dictionaries of these last languages, I observe that the Ma¬ 
layan word is generally placed first in order, whence I infer that it 
is probably the most current and acceptable, and this, I have no 
doubt, it owes to its more agreeable and facile pronunciation. Thus, 
in the Malagasi, it is not difficult to understand how the Malayan 
vatu , for a stone, should be preferred, even by a native, to hodiho- 
amkazo . 
That agreeableness of sound and facility of pronunciation have 
had a considerable share in the spread of Malayan words, I think 
highly probable. Thus, the Malay word laid, a man or male hu¬ 
man being, is one of very easy pronunciation, and has extended to 
nearly every language of the Archipelago, while its correlative, pd~ 
rdmpuan , woman, a primitive of four syllables, rare in any of the 
Malayan languages—-is found in one other language only, that of the 
Bima of Sumbawa, which abounds in Malayan words. 
Of Sanscrit words expressing simple ideas, that have either su¬ 
perseded, or are more popular than native ones, the examples are 
numerous; as in Malay kapala, the head ; in Javanese, sir a, for the 
head; muka, the face, bahu , the shoulder, and anguta , a member, 
in several languages; dina, a day, in Javanese and Bali; hasta, the 
arm, in several languages : dasa> for the numeral ten and suri/cc, for 
