Update: 2018-06-22 05:03 AM -0400
dissertation.htm
- by John Crawfurd, F.R.S., author of "The History of the Indian
Archipelago." volume 1 of 2, 1852.
- JCrawfurd-GramDictMalay<Ô>
/ Bkp<Ô>
(link chk 180610)
Edited by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA) and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL) . Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone. Prepared for students and staff of TIL Research Station, Yangon, MYANMAR : http://www.tuninst.net , www.romabama.blogspot.com
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CAT-Malay-indx.htm
Preface
A Dissertation on the affinities of the Malayan
languages, &c. &c.
Wide diffusion of a Malayan tongue
Generally adopted theory
Refutation of the theory
Imagined tests of a common
language
Test of a common tongue
UKT notes :
• Negritos
• Language and Race
From: JCrawfurd-GramDictMalay<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180610)
(roman07begin)
The Work which I now submit to the Public is the result of
much labour, spread, with various interruptions, over a period
of more than forty years, twelve of which were passed in
countries of which the Malay is the vernacular or the popular
language, and ten in the compilation of materials.
It remains for me only to acknowledge my obligations to those who assisted me in the compilation of my book. My first and greatest are to my friend and predecessor in the same field of labour, the late William Marsden, the judicious and learned author of the History of Sumatra, and of the Malay Grammar and Dictionary. A few months before his death, Mr. Marsden delivered to me a copy of his Dictionary, corrected with his own hand, and two valuable lists of words, with which he had been furnished by the Rev. Mr. Hutchins, of Penang, and by the Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Batavia [the capital city of the Dutch East Indies - present-day Central Jakarta] and Bencoolen [now Bengkulu City, Sumatra]. [UKT ¶]
These, aided by Javanese dictionaries compiled during a six years' sojourn in Java, and by recent reading, constitute, in fact, the chief materials from which the present work has been prepared. Without the previous labours of (roman07end-roman08begin) Mr. Marsden my book certainly never would have been written, or even attempted.
Next to Mr. Marsden, I am indebted to my friend Professor Horace Hayman Wilson, of Oxford, for it is to his unrivalled oriental learning, that I owe the Sanskrit etymologies of the dictionary, and whatever may be found of value, connected with the great recondite language of India, in the preliminary Dissertation.
During the progress of my work, I have had the good fortune to enjoy the correspondence of my friend J. Robert Logan, of Singapore, the editor of the Journal of the Indian Archipelago, a work abounding in original and authentic communications. Our present rapid intercourse with India has enabled me, when at a loss, to refer to Mr. Logan ; and I have received from him elucidations of grammar, and additional words, accompanied by definitions.
In passing the sheets of ray book through the press, I have been assisted by the supervision and corrections of an acute orientalist, who has made the Malayan and Polynesian language an object of special study, my friend Captain Thomas Bramber Gascoign.
In the nomenclature of plants, my own imperfect knowledge has been more than compensated by the science of my friends Robert Brown, George Bentham, and Nathaniel Wallich. In the department of zoology, my chief obligations are to a highly esteemed friend, whose acquaintance I had the happiness first to make in Java, more than forty years ago, Dr. Thomas Horsfield, one whose knowledge of every branch of the natural history of the Archipelago is well known to the public. (roman08end)
(roman09begin)
The work which I have now brought to a close, with many imperfections, is more
copious than any of its predecessors; and may, perhaps, be the foundation of a
more complete superstructure, to be raised by those who come after me.
February, 1852. (roman09end)
From: JCrawfurd-GramDictMalay<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180610)
(roman01begin)
A CERTAIN connexion, of more or less extent, is well ascertained to exist
between most of the languages which prevail from Madagascar to Easter Island in
the Pacific, and from Formosa, on the coast of China, to New Zealand. It exists,
then, over two hundred degrees of longitude and seventy of latitude, or over a
fifth part of the surface of the earth. I propose inquiring into the nature and
origin of this singular connexion -- the most wide-spread in the history of
native rude languages; and in the course of the investigation
hope to be enabled, to some extent, to trace the progress of society among
nations and tribes substantially without records, and of whose history and
social advancement nothing valuable can be known beyond what such evidence will
yield.
UKT 180603: What J. Crawfurd is referring to is no doubt the Asokan-Brahmi which is closely related to Pali-Myan, the script of which is the Myanmar akshara. Because of this connexion, we should be able to transcribe the present day Malay-Latin to Bur-Myan, even without the knowledge of the pre-Islamic script, thought to be related to Pallava script which was probably descended from Myanmar script. See Wikipedia:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallava_script 180603
"The Pallava script, a Brahmic script, was developed under the Pallava dynasty of Southern India around the 6th century AD. Southeast Asian scripts such as Grantha, Javanese, Kawi, Baybayin, Mon, Burmese, Khmer, Lanna, Thai, Lao, Sinhalese, and the New Tai Lue alphabets are either direct or indirect derivations from the Kadamba-Pallava alphabet. [7] "
The vast region of which I have given the outline may be geographically described as consisting of the innumerable islands of the Indian Archipelago, from Sumatra to New Guinea -- of the great group of the Philippines -- of the islands of the North and South Pacific -- and of Madagascar. It is inhabited by many different and distinct races of men, -- as the Malayan, the brown Polynesian, the insular Negro of several varieties, and the African of Madagascar. Of these, the state of civilisation is so various, that some are abject savages, while others have made a respectable progress in the useful arts, and even attained some knowledge of letters. [UKT ¶]
UKT 180615: I've to keep in mind that even to this day most people in the West including many in our region usually mix up the two terms script and speech. We have the luxury of differentiating them in Bur-Myan as {sa} 'script', and
{sa.ka:} 'speech'.
The whole region is (roman01end-roman02begin) insular, and, with the exception of the islands of New Zealand, monsoons, or trade winds, prevail through every part of it. To this, I have no doubt, is mainly to be attributed the wide dissemination of language now the subject of inquiry, and which, among rude nations, were impossible on a continent without periodical winds.
The generally adopted explanation of this wide dissemination of language amounts to this, that the many existing tongues were originally one language, through time and distance split into many dialects, and that all the people speaking these supposed dialects are of one and the same race. [UKT ¶]
UKT 180610: What can this one and the same race be. I remember reading that this race to be the Negritos their descendants exemplified by the peoples of Andaman-Cocos islands off the coast of Myanmarpré.
See: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Islands (180610)
"The Coco Islands{ko:ko:kwyûn:} are a small group of islands in the northeastern Indian Ocean. They are part of the Yangon Region of Myanmarpré. The islands are located 414 km (257 mi) south of the city of Yangon."
See also: Andaman Islands
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andaman_Islands (180610)
"The Andaman Islands form an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal between India, to the west, and Myanmarpré, to the north and east. Most are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India, while a small number in the north of the archipelago, including the Coco Islands, belong to Myanmar.The Andaman Islands are home to the Andamanese, a group of indigenous peoples including the Sentinelese, who have had little contact with any other people. [1]
For Negritos read, Why Have the Peninsular "Negritos" Remained Distinct? by Geoffrey Benjamin, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2013
- GBenjamin-Negritos<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180610)
See the Abstract in my notes: Negritos
But as this hypothesis could not well be maintained in the face of an existing negro population, the negroes and their - languages are specially excepted, on the erroneous supposition that no words of the common tongue exist in their languages. This hypothesis originated with the German naturalist, Forster, who accompanied Captain Cooke in his second voyage, and it has been adopted by many distinguished philologists, but especially by Mr. Marsden and Baron William Humboldt. It was, in a modified form, my own opinion, in a less mature state of my acquaintance with the subject ; but I am now satisfied that it is wholly groundless.* [fn-roman02]
Some of the objections to this hypothesis, exclusive of the palpable one of the existence of Malayan words in all the negro languages, are obvious. It supposes, for example, that language and race are identical, taking it, of course, for granted, that men are born with peculiar languages as they are with peculiar complexions; and that both are equally unchangeable. Many well known events of authentic (roman02end-roman03begin) history refute this notion. Thus, the half-dozen languages spoken in ancient Italy were all, in time, absorbed by one of them. The languages spoken in Britain twenty centuries ago have been nearly supplanted by a German tongue. Several millions of negroes in the New World, whose parent tongues were African, have exchanged them for English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. For the languages spoken in ancient France and Spain, a language of Italian origin has been almost wholly substituted. Although language often affords valuable historical evidence, it would only lead to error to consider it as invariably identical with race.
It is quite certain, that within the proper Indian Archipelago, or islands extending from Sumatra to the western shores of New Guinea, and respecting which our information is most complete, no languages exist derived from a common stock, and standing to each other in the relation of sisterhood, as Italian, Spanish, and French, do to each other ; or as Gaelic does to Irish ; or Armorican to Welsh, or Scotch to English. [UKT¶]
The only dialects that exist are of the Malay and Javanese languages, but they consist of little more than differences in pronunciation, or the more or less frequent use of a few words. In the Polynesian islands alone, real dialects of a common tongue do exist; but here, as will be afterwards shown, the number of words common to such dialects, and to the languages of the Archipelago, is so trifling, that it refutes at once the notion of a common origin.
UKT 180615: The Malay language (of that period) mentioned above had both speech and script. Since the script was a derivative of Asokan-Brahmi, though under the influence of Arabic, it is bound to be similar to Bur-Myan. It is, therefore, worthwhile for me to study Malay.
Another insuperable argument against the theory of one original tongue is found in the nature of many of the words of the imagined derivative dialects. These abound in terms very widely diffused, indicating an advanced state of society ; as for example, an useful system of numeration, terms connected with agriculture, navigation, the useful arts, and even with letters. The people that had such a language must necessarily have been in a tolerably advanced state of civilisation, in such a one for example as we find the principal nations of Sumatra, Java, and Celebes to be in, at the present day ; and many of the tribes which the theory supposes to be derived from it, not only did not maintain the civilisation of the parent nation, but have even fallen into the condition of mere savages ; a result (roman03end-roman04begin) improbable and contrary to the usual history of society. [UKT¶]
If the imagined parent language had ever existed, we should be able to trace it to its locality, as we might the modern languages of the south of Europe to Latin, even had there been no history, or as we can assign a common origin to the Polynesian languages from New Zealand to the Sandwich islands. The name of the language, and the name and locality of the advanced people who spoke it, might, among tribes acquainted with letters [script], be known ; but there is no indication of such language or people, and the conjectures of European scholars on these subjects will be shown to have no shadow of foundation.
The tests applied, by the supporters of the theory to prove the existence of a common original language, have consisted in an essential identity of a few words, and in a supposed similarity of grammatical structure. [UKT¶]
UKT 180615: In comparing Bur-Myan to present-day Malay-Latin (Malay speech written in English-Latin), I cannot rely on grammar. Both languages have no tense, no plural-singular, and no gender as in Skt-Dev or Eng-Lat or even Pali-Myan, making use of grammatical structure useless. I hope to get more confirmation or rejection of this idea of mine after more study of Bur-Myan of the very early days after the annexation of Burma by the British colonialists. Look into my study of Section 5: Myanmar languages and culture , particularly ¤ Burmese Grammar and Grammatical Analysis 1899 , by A. W. Lonsdale, Rangoon: British Burma Press, 1899 xii, 461, in two parts. Part 1. Orthoepy (pronunciation) and orthography (spelling); Part 2. Accidence and syntax - BG1899-indx.htm (link chk 180615)
To this last test, chiefly relied on by late German writers, I am not disposed to attach much weight, when applied to languages of remarkably simple structure, affording necessarily few salient points for comparison ; and such is the case with all the insular languages. With respect to the test by identity of words, it is certain that the number, and the particular description of words, are alone entitled to any weight ; and that the existence of a small number of words in common, in the languages under examination, is no more a proof of their derivation from a common tongue than the existence of Latin words in English that our Teutonic tongue is a sister dialect of Italian, Spanish, and French ; or of Latin words in Irish that Irish is derived from Latin; or of Arabic words in Spanish that the Spanish language is of Arabian origin, and a sister dialect of Hebrew.
It has been imagined by some writers that when the class of words expressing the first and simplest ideas of mankind are the same in two or more languages, such languages may be considered as derived from the same stock. [UKT¶]
This certainly does not accord with my experience of the Malayan and Polynesian languages, into which, from the simplicity of their structure, I find that well-sounding foreign words very readily gain admission. Instead of words expressing simple ideas being excluded, I should, on the whole, owing to the familiar and frequent use of (roman04end-roman05begin) the ideas which they express, consider them the most amenable to adoption of any class of words whatsoever. Accordingly, such words will be found, either to have supplanted native terms altogether, or to be used as familiar synonymes along with them. [UKT¶]
UKT 180615: In the following lines, "Sanskrit" may not be wholly correct if we remember that Sanskrit is speech - not script. Sanskrit is written in Devanagari script, and it is on Devanagari or its predecessor the Nagari that we should make our comparison. Prior to those, the script was Asokan-Brahmi, the modern form of which is Bur-Myan. Sanskrit belongs to IE (Indo-European language group), whereas the inhabitants before the incursion of IE-speakers, had spoken Tib-Bur (Tibeto-Burman) which had very simple grammar: no tense, no singular-plural, and no gender. Even today Malay-Latin has no tense, no singular-plural, and no gender showing that at one time it was Tib-Bur.
Thus, to give some examples in Malay; the most familiar words for the head, the shoulder, the face, a limb, a hair or pile, brother, house, elephant, the sun, the day, to speak, and to talk, are all Sanskrit. [UKT¶]
In Javanese we have from the same Sanskrit, the head, the shoulders, the throat, the hand, the face, father, brother, son, daughter, woman, house, buffalo, elephant, with synonymes from the hog and dog, the sun, the moon, the sea, and a mountain. [UKT¶]
In the language of Bali [whose inhabitants are Hindus in faith}, the name for the sun in most familiar use is Sanskrit, and a word of the same language is the only one in use for the numeral ten. It is on the same principle that I account for the existence of a similar class of Malayan words in the Tagala of the Philippines, although the whole number of Malayan words does not exceed one fiftieth part of the language. Head, brain, hand, finger, elbow, hair, feather, child, sea, moon, rain, to speak, to die, to give, to love, are examples. [UKT¶]
In the Maori, or New Zealand, the words forehead, sky, gnat, stone, fruit, to drink, to die, are Malay or Javanese, yet of these two tongues there are not a hundred words in the whole language. [UKT¶]
As to the personal pronouns, which have often been referred to as evidence of a common tongue, in as far as concerns the language under examination, they are certainly the most interchangeable of all classes of words, and cannot possibly be received as evidence. Some of them, for example, are found in the Polynesian dialects, where, in a vocabulary of five thousand words, a hundred Malayan terms do not exist. The numerals must surely be considered as out of the category of early-invented words, for they imply a very considerable social advancement, and seem to be just the class of words most likely to be adopted by any savages of tolerable natural capacity. [UKT¶]
The Australians are not savages of such capacity, and although with the opportunity of borrowing the Malayan numerals, they have not done so, and, in their own languages, count only as far as " two."
The words which appear to me most fit to test the unity of (roman05end-roman06begin) languages are those indispensable to their structure, —which constitute, as it were, their framework, and without which they cannot be spoken or written. [UKT¶]
These are the prepositions which represent the cases of languages of complex structure, and the auxiliaries which represent times and moods. If a sentence can be constructed by words of the same origin, in two or more languages, such languages may safely be considered as sister tongues, —to be, in fact, dialects, or to have sprung from one stock. [UKT¶]
In applying this test, it is not necessary that the sentence so constructed should be grammatical, or that the parties speaking sister tongues should be intelligible to each other. The languages of the South of Europe can be written with words common to them all, derived from the Latin without the assistance of any of the foreign words which all of them contain. [UKT¶]
UKT 180616: What is Latin: speech (spoken language) or script (written language)? To me Latin is script - belonging to the Alphabet-Letter system of recording speech sounds in written scratches which I am calling glyphs.
The writing system applied for Sanskrit speech is Abugida-Akshara. The basic unit of the Abugida-Akshara is the syllable because of which the Akshara is pronounceable. The basic unit of the Alphabet-Letter system is the mute Letter. The aim of a writing system to represent speech sounds to glyphs is a one-to-one mapping between a speech sound and a glyph. Abugida-Akshara system aim for this one-to-one goal which at first sight is complex. The goal is the aim of phonetic-writing systems. The Alphabet-Letter does not aim for this precision, but only for simplicity, and is therefore non-phonetic. Using this idea, I could see how an Abugida-Akshara system, represented by Bur-Myan, can be changed into Georgian.
Bur-Myan (Abugida-Akshara system) - Georgian (Alphabet-Letter system)----------------------------
{ta.} ---------------------------------------- თ (U10D7: consonant "Tan") + ა (U10D0 Letter An) (vowel-giver)
(vowel-killer) =
{t} =------- თ (U10D7: consonant "Tan")
{i.} =
{ti.} -------------------- თ (U10D7: consonant "Tan") + ი (U10D8: vowel "In")
It is interesting to note that the Bur-Myan vowel-killer{a.þût}-sign and the Georgian vowel-giver, are inverse of each other.
Just as the vowel-killer - virama
{a.}. However, in English-Latin it can be anything from /a/, /æ/, /ə/.
For me Latin is the script, which can be used to record Roman the speech. Latin can represent most of the speeches of Western Europe, such as English and French, but so imperfectly that the transliteration becomes unintelligible. To correct this the Western phoneticians had to invent the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).
Unfortunately when the American computer scientists designed their ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) they did not take the IPA into consideration, making the IPA almost useless - incompatible with email and internet. Because of this, I have to invent Romabama script just for my study of languages, particularly Burmese and English.
ASCII n. Computer Science ¹. A standard for defining codes for information exchange between equipment produced by different manufacturers. ². A code that follows this standard. - AHTD
The common stock, therefore, from which they
[languages of the South of Europe - the
Romance languages] are derived is
Roman Latin, and they are
sister tongues. [UKT¶]
English [ of Teutonic (Germanic) group] can be written with great ease with words entirely Anglo-Saxon, and without any French word, although French forms a sixth part of the whole body of its words, but no sentence can be constructed consisting of French words only. [UKT¶]
UKT 180616: The above paragraphs emphasize the fact that English and French are quite different. French is a Romance language whereas English is not. The map as far as Canada is concerned is somewhat not correct. Only the Province of Québec is Francophone (French-speaking), the rest is Anglophone (English-speaking). Canada is officially bilingual and all high government officials must be able to speak both English and French fluently.
The parent stock of our [spoken] language, therefore, is not French or Roman
Latin, but Anglo-Saxon. By this test the Irish and Gaelic are
shown to be, virtually, the same language, and the Welsh and
Armorican to be sister dialects. [UKT¶]
UKT 180617: My interest in the Welsh language is because of words the English-speakers find very difficult to pronounce. The difficulty is due to "double L sounds", as in the name Llywelyn, which are common in Bur-Myan as
{ha.hto:}-sounds. This info about LL sound
{lha.} is from my friend Dr. Maung Di
{ko-di}, who during in his doctorate study in England had made friends with a Welsh professor. The professor made Ko Di repeat a number of Welsh words which Ko Di could repeat to the professor's satisfaction.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llywelyn_the_Great 180617
But it will not prove that the Welsh and Irish, although they contain many words in common, are the same language, and derived from the same source.
UKT 180617: Nevertheless all the Western European languages use the basic Latin script for recording speech as script. Even though the spoken languages are mutually non-understandable, because of the script we can understand the meaning. This is the aim of Shin Kic'si - the Buddhist linguist monk praised by the Gautama Buddha, and the aim of King Asoka the Great. Likewise, it is also my aim to bring out a common script, Romabama
{ro:ma.ba.ma} 'literal meaning: the back-bone of Bamah speech' which I am applying to BEPS languages. As a bonus, I will promote my ancestral script, the Myanmar script
{mrûn-ma sa} to the world's attention. It is my hope to bring out the Bamah speech
{ba.ma sa.ka:}: and, thus, my use of the double words
Applying this test to the Malayan speeches languages it will be found
that a sentence of Malay can be constructed without the
assistance of Javanese words, or of Javanese without the help of
Malay words. Of course either of these two languages can be
written or spoken without the least difficulty, without a word
of Sanskrit or Arabic. [UKT ¶]
UKT 180617: The author's inability to differentiate speech and script makes his arguments confusing. By Malay and Java languages he is obviously meaning the language of common people in matters of daily life. However, in matters of faith such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, I cannot accept his conclusion. I will argue from the point of view of two Myanmar languages: Bamah (Burmese), and Mon. When we talk about Buddhism, our common faith a Bamah-speaker can catch a few words in the sentences of a Mon-speaker.
The Malay and Javanese, then, although
a large proportion of their words be in common, are distinct
speeches languages, and as to their Sanskrit and Arabic elements they
are extrinsic and unessential. [UKT ¶]
When the test is applied to the Polynesian languages we find an opposite result. A sentence in the Maori and Tahitian can be written in words common to both, and without tlic help of one word of the Malayan which (roman06end-roman07begin) they contain, just as a sentence of Welsh or Irish can be constructed without the help of Latin, although of this language they contain, at least, as large a proportion of words as the Maori or Tahitian do of Malayan. The Maori and Tahitian are, therefore, essentially the same language, and their Malayan ingredient is extrinsic.
In an inquiry into languages [made up of speech and script] in order to show their affinities, it must be obvious that the examination of a limited number of words can lead to no certain or useful conclusion, and this is very satisfactorily shown by the vocabularies exhibited by such careful and indefatigable scholars as Mr. Marsden and Baron Humboldt. [UKT ¶]
Mr. Marsden's English words amount to thirty-four ; and of these, as far as his collections admitted, he has given the synonymes in eighty Malayan and Polynesian languages ; and it is from this meagre vocabulary that my valued friend would prove the unity of the languages of all the brown-complexioned races from Sumatra to Easter Island. [UKT ¶]
UKT 180622: See Language and Race in my notes
I still have to go through text below.
Ten words out of the thirty-four are numerals, three are adjectives, and all the rest are nouns, — every other part of speech being omitted. In the very first column of assumed native words, viz., the Malay, five of the synonymes are Sanskrit words, — a fact which touches on the history, but not on the unity, of the languages. Baron Humboldt's vocabulary of German words amounts to 134, and he has given their synonymes, as far as his materials allowed, in nine languages, or more strictly in six only, since four out of the number are Polynesian dialects. His words are all nouns, adjectives, or verbs, to the exclusion of every other part of speech. Favoured with ampler materials than were possessed by my predecessors in the inquiry, I have come to opposite conclusions. After as careful an examination as I have been able to make of the many languages involved in the present inquiry, and duly The Malay Considering the physical and geographical character of the wide field over which they are spoken, with the social condition of its various inhabitants, I have come widespread to the conclusion that the words which are common to so many tongues have been chiefly derived from the languages of the two most civilised and adventurous nations of (roman07end-roman08begin)
the Archipelago,—the Malays and Javanese ; and, adopting this hypothesis, I shall proceed with the inquiry, beginning with a sketch of these two nations and their languages. For convenience, and in order to avoid repetition, I use the word Malayan for whatever is common to these two people.
According to the universal tradition of the Malays, Sumatra is the parent country of their nation. This greatest island of the Archipelago, after Borneo, contains an area of history of 128,500 square miles. Its geological formation is partly primitive and partly volcanic, it has some very high mountains and some extensive plains among its hill ranges. Among these plains is that of Mânangkabau on the Equator, the very focus of the Malay nation. Next to Java, Sumatra is the most fertile of the great islands of the Archipelago, and therefore the most likely to be a cradle of early civilisation. The Malays at present possess nearly one half the whole area of the island, including its coasts on the east and west side.
The earliest notice which Europeans received of the existence of the Malay nation, and it was a very meagre one, was given by Marco Polo on his return to Venice in 1295. It was not until 220 years later that they became really acquainted with them. A hundred and thirty years before the Malays were seen by the Venetian traveller, or in the year 1160, took place the only recorded migration of the Malays from Sumatra, that which formed the settlement of Singapore. We must not conclude, from the comparative recentness of this event, or because the Malays, like the Hindus, have no history, that many earlier migrations had not taken place. When first actually seen by Europeans, they were traders and rovers over the Archipelago. They were the principal carriers of the clove and nutmeg from the most easterly to the most westerly ports of the Archipelago, —forming, in fact, the first link in that long and tedious chain of transport by which these much-valued commodities were, for nearly twenty centuries, conveyed to Greece and Rome. In the year 180 of Christ the clove and nutmeg were regular articles of import into the Roman Empire ; and it is highly probable that the trade was conducted then, in the same manner as when it was first observed by Europeans at its source. By (roman08end-roman09begin)
this kind of circumstantial evidence, then, we carry Malayan history back for near seventeen centuries ; but as the Hindus were probably consumers of the clove and nutmeg long before Greeks and Romans, Malayan history, in all likelihood, goes a great deal farther back than this.
In Sumatra, the Malays, from the cradle of the nation, the interior plain of Mânangkabau, pushed their conquests, or settlements, to their present extensive limits. From Sumatra they emigrated and formed colonies in the Malay Peninsula and in Borneo ; the first probably, and the last certainly, occupied before them by rude tribes of the same race of men, who could offer no effectual resistance. In the remoter islands, or in those occupied by powerful and civilised nations, the Malays appear only as settlers, and not colonists, as Java, the principal islands of the Philippine Archipelago, Timur and the Moluccas.
The peninsula sometimes called Tanah Mâlayu, or the land of the Malays, contains an area of above G0,000 square miles. The geological formation is primitive, rich in metalliferous ores, but generally poor in soil. "With the exception of a few diminutive negro mountaineers, it is occupied either by Malays or by men of the same race ; for there exist in the interior several wild tribes, who, although not calling themselves Malays, speak the Malay language, and have the same physical form as the Malays. Whether these wild people be the original inhabitants of the peninsula before the invasion of the Malays, and who have adopted the Malay language, or Malays who rejected the Mahomedan religion, it is very difficult to say; but as their language contains many words that are not Malay, and as it is not likely that so extensive a country should be without any inhabitants when invaded by the Malays, except a few scattered negroes, the first supposition seems the more probable. Nearly the whole coast of Borneo is occupied by Malay colonies; but neither here, nor in the peninsula, can any one of the many states which occupy them, tell when, or how their forefathers first arrived. Some intelligent merchants of the state of Brunai, or Borneo Proper, informed me in 1825 that the present inhabitants were, then, the twenty-ninth in descent from the original settlers from Manangkabau, and that when thev first settled
* [fn-roman02] - " We likewise find a very remarkable similarity between several words of the fair tribe of islanders in the South Sea, and some of the Malays. But it would be highly inconclusive, from the similarity of a few words, to infer that these islanders were descended from the Malays ..." [UKT ¶]
"I am, therefore, rather inclined to suppose that all these dialects
preserve several words of a more ancient language, which was more universal, and
was gradually divided into many languages, now remarkably
different. The words, therefore, of the language of the South Sea isles, which
are similar to others in the Malay tongue, prove clearly, in my opinion, that
the
South Sea isles were originally peopled from the Indian, or Asiatic Northern
isles
;
and that those lying more to the westward received their first inhabitants from
the neighbourhood of New Guinea."
—
Observations.- Voyage round tlie World, by
John Reynold Forster; London, 1778.
UKT 180614: I've come across many years ago a paper on the relationship between Maori and Sanskrit languages. Now, see The Relationship between Maori and Sanskrit languages - by Adele Schafer, in Te Ao Hou - the New World , Nat. Library of New Zealand, 51, 1965 June - http://teaohou.natlib.govt.nz/journals/teaohou/issue/Mao51TeA/c18.html 180614
"In the 19th century a good few writers explored the relationships which exist between the languages and cultures of India and South-East Asia and those of Polynesia. Many of these writers argued that the original home of the Polynesian people was India, and many of them considered that there was a clear relationship between the Polynesian language and Sanskrit [UKT 180614: the ancient language is Magadhi-Asokan - a Tib-Bur language] , one of the ancient languages of India. ... the most important contribution to this subject was made by Edward Tregear, who in 1891 published his ‘Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary’.
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From: Why Have the Peninsular "Negritos" Remained Distinct? by Geoffrey Benjamin, Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2013
The primary focus of this article is on the so-called negritos of Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand, but attention is also paid to other parts of Southeast Asia. (UKT ¶)
I present a survey of current views on the “negrito” phenotype -- is it single or many? If the phenotype is many (as now seems likely), it must have resulted from parallel evolution in the several different regions where it has been claimed to exist. This would suggest (contrary to certain views that have been expressed on the basis of very partial genetic data) that the phenotype originated recently and by biologically well-authenticated processes from within the neighboring populations. Whole-genome and physical-anthropological research currently support this view. Regardless of whether the negrito phenotype is ancient or recent -- and to the extent that it retains any valid biological reality (which is worth questioning) -- explanations are still needed for its continued distinctiveness. (UKT ¶)
In the Malay Peninsula, a distinctive “Semang” societal pattern followed by most, but not all, so-called negritos may have been responsible for this by shaping familial, breeding, and demographic patterns to suit the two main modes of environmental appropriation that they have followed, probably for some millennia: nomadic foraging in the forest, and facultative dependence on exchange or labor relations with neighboring populations. (UKT ¶)
The known distribution of “negritos” in the Malay Peninsula is limited to areas within relatively easy reach of archaeologically authenticated premodern transpeninsular trading and portage routes, as well as of other non-negrito, Aslian-speaking populations engaged in swidden farming.(UKT ¶)
This suggests that their continued distinctiveness has resulted from a wish to maintain a complementary advantage vis-à-vis other, less specialized populations. Nevertheless, a significant degree of discordance exists between the associated linguistic, societal-tradition, and biological patterns which suggests that other factors have also been at play.
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UKT 180622: I fear that the author is confused in thinking on connection between on Race and Language. Before I can proceed I need to know something about the thinking of his time. Read the following from:
Language and Race, by Bill Ashcroft, Univ. of New South Wales, in J. for Study of Race, Nation and Culture, vol 7 issue 3, 2001
pp 311-328 | Published online: 25 Aug 2010
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504630120087190?journalCode=csid20 180622
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