A grammar and dictionary of the Malay language : with a preliminary ...

cxxvlii DISSERTATION.
radical words, and that they even consider this manner of expres-
sion as graceful and elegant.*
The Spanish writers on the languages of the Philippines
inform us that the Tagala alphabet has been borrowed from
that of the Malays. This is, however, the mere assertion of
men who had not attended to the subject, or, in a word, who
really knew nothing at all about it. The Malays, as already
stated, have at present no native alphabet; and the Tagala
alphabet is peculiar and bears little resemblance to any native
written character of the nations of the western part of the
Archipelago. These writers further assure us, Avithout showing
any evidence for their belief, that all the Philippine languages
are but dialects of a common tongue, which they tell us is the
Malay, as the Ionic, the Attic, and Eolian, are dialects of
Greek ; the Spanish, Portuguese, and French, dialects of
Latin; and the Northern languages of Europe dialects of
Gothic. All this is asserted of languages of which little more
than a fortieth part is Malay, and which, in other respects, have
hardly anything in common with the Malay .f
But we have a similar, although not the same opinion from
a different and far higher authority. The illustrious philo-
sopher, linguist, and statesman, the late Baron William
Humboldt, has, in his large work on the Kawi of Java,
expressed the opinion that the Tagala of the Philippines is
the most perfect living specimen of that Malayan tongue,
which, with other writers, he fancies to have been the parent
stock from which all the tongues of the brown race in the
Eastern Archipelago, the Philippines, the islands of the Pacific,
and even the language of Madagascar have sprung. I cannot
help thinking that this hypothesis, maintained with much
ingenuity, must have originated in this eminent scholar's
practical unacquaintance with any one language of the many
which came under his consideration, and that had he possessed
the necessary knowledge, the mere running over the pages of
any Philippine dictionary would have satisfied him of the error
* Arte de la lengiia Bisaya, por Fr. Alonzo de Mentrida, p. 83. Manilla, 1818.
+ Compendio de la lengiia Tagala, jior el padre Fra. Gaspar do San Avignstin.
Prologo, p. 108.