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APPENDIX. 
It is not intended, in the following remarks on the grammar 
of the Malagasy language, to institute any further comparison 
between it and any other language, Oriental or Occidental. 
Nor are the following pages presented as containing a complete 
Malagasy grammar, which does not properly belong to a work 
professing to be only a history of the country; besides which, 
the strictly philological character of a grammar would prevent 
its being sufficiently acceptable or interesting to the general 
reader, to justify its insertion here. 
A few only of the leading features and more striking peculi¬ 
arities will be pointed out, following the arrangements usually 
observed in the Western grammars, merely premising, that the 
natives themselves, having had no written language till it was in¬ 
troduced lately among them by their Missionary instructors, had, 
of course, no grammar of their language. To the latter they 
are indebted for an exhibition of the rules on which the struc¬ 
ture of their language is built. 
The first inquiry respects the roots employed in the language, 
and, with regard to these, the following observations may illus¬ 
trate these characters— 
1. Very many words exist in the language which are obvi¬ 
ously compound, and can easily be traced to their respective 
component parts; and the changes they undergo in the compo¬ 
sition of one word satisfactorily accounted for. 
2. Many other words exist, which are strictly the roots with 
a few affixes, to give them their verbal or nominal signification. 
3. Other words exist in their own proper form as roots, and 
cannot be traced to any simpler form whatever; as vaky , split; 
tery, pressed ; voly, planted ; reny , mother. 
4. In some instances, the primitive root appears to have 
become obsolete, or to be altogether lost, while its derivatives 
remain in use extensively. 
5. The root usually consists of two syllables—frequently of 
three: in some cases of one only; and in some few instances 
of four, or even more. 
6. The root may generally be known by its being destitute 
of all those affixes and postfixes which will be pointed out under 
the chapters on nouns and verbs. 
7. Roots may perhaps be found in all the various parts of 
speech; but usually they consist of nouns or passive participles; 
as, mofo, bread; and tery, pressed. Some few roots appear to 
exist both as nouns and participles. 
8. Those roots which admit the principal verbal inflections 
are generally passive participles — vidy, bought; liita, seen; 
laza, spoken; re, heard ; lany, expended. 
9. A root may generally be known by its admitting the par¬ 
ticle “ voa ” immediately before it. For though many cases 
