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

DISSERTATION. ccxxvii
tlie Malayan, on the decimal scale, and belonging to the lan-
guage of a people of the Malayan race, are yet, in every word,
totally different from the current Malayan numerals. The
numerals of the Sumbawa, a language of the same island as the
Tambora, are, on the contrary, wholly Malayan, or rather
Malay, to the exclusion of Javanese, with the single exception
of "hundred," which takes the form of the latter language.
It is the only example of this, that I am aware of, and would
seem to imply a powerful settlement of pure Malays in the part
of the island in which the Sumbawa is spoken.
The Tarnati numeral system, formed like the Tambora and
the Malayan, on the decimal scale, differs from both, up to a
hundred, when it adopts the usual Malayan numerals. The
only exception is the numeral " nine," siyu, which may possibly
be the Javanese sanga.
In the language of Tambora, then, we find, in the very centre
of the Archipelago, a system of numerals wholly different from
the Malayan ; and, again, towards its eastern limits, in the
Tarnati, another nearly so. This striking fact ought alone,
to be sufficient to overthrow the hypothesis of all the languages
from Madagascar to Easter island being essentially one tongue,
and in support of which a supposed universality of the numerals
has been adduced as a principal argument. The numerals of
Ternate and Tambora have never extended beyond the spots
where they originated ; but it is easy to conceive that had the
localities of the people of Tambora and Ternate been exchanged
for those of the Malays and Javanese, that is, if they had been
planted in great and fertile islands where there was room for
development, instead of small or barren ones, in Avhich their
energies were cramped, we might have seen their numerals
widely disseminated instead of the Malayan.
I proceed with the enquiry, as it regards the Philippine lan-
influenceofthe S^^g^^^ ^^^ whicli tlic dictionaries of the three prin-
^IhosTof^the"' c^P^l languages, the Tagala, the Pampanga, and
Philippines.
Bisaya, afford ample materials. In the first and
last the names of the domesticated animals are as follow :
ff2
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