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APPENDIX. 
and those of the adjacent continent, and may perhaps assist in 
tracing the origin of the Negrito races of western Polynesia.* 
In Madagascar itself different dialects exist. The spoken 
language of the Hovas, and others inhabiting the interior pro¬ 
vinces, differs from that on the coasts where the ng is frequently 
used. Still, in its verbal form and grammatical structure, one 
language may be said to pervade the entire country; and though 
the introduction of letters has been confined to the language of 
the Hovas, and dictionaries and grammars exist in that language 
alone, these may be regarded as exhibiting the peculiar features 
of the language of the whole island. 
The great peculiarity of the structure of this language consists 
in the facility, uniformity, and precision with which, by means of 
prefixes and affixes, the roots or primitive words of the language 
may, according to fixed rules, be rendered capable of expressing 
different meanings to an extent that is truly astonishing. The 
Rev. I). Griffiths, in his Malagasy and English Grammar, the 
latest and most extensive grammar yet published, states that 
some single roots will produce two hundred words of different 
orthography and signification. There is nothing approaching to 
this extent of compound words in any of the Polynesian dialects ; 
and minute distinctions seem redundant in the Malagasy, when we 
are told that there are twenty different words for expressing the 
manner of growth of the horns of an ox, and thirty words to 
signify the several modes in which the natives plait their hair. 
This multiplication of words for varying shades of meaning, and 
the facility of forming many compound words from a single root, 
adds to the copiousness of the language, which often combines 
conciseness with great precision of meaning. Thus, mody is “ to 
go home,” tampody , “ to go out and return home the same day.” 
Much precision of meaning is often manifest in the use of nouns 
formed from adjectives of quality, as, ratsy , bad; haratsiana , 
badness, wickedness in the abstract; faharatsiana , wickedness 
in action; tsara, good; hatsarana , goodness in the abstract; 
fahatsarana , goodness in operation. Thus, hatsarana is an attri¬ 
bute of God—his essential goodness; fahatsarana is his goodness 
in action — the benevolence he exercises. 
