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

DISSEETATIOX. xlvii
come along, and intermixed with that language, such intermix-
ture would have implied either conquest by the Talugus, or an
extensive settlement of that people in some form or another
and of this there is not a trace. It is not true, however, that
no Talugu words are to be found in the Javanese and Malay,
for there is a considerable number coextensive with the influence
exercised by this people,—some pure Talugu, and others which
are Sanskrit, that bear evidence of ha\'ing passed through that
language.
The Hindu religion and Sanskrit language were, in all pro-
babilit}^, earliest introduced in the western part of Sumatra, the
nearest part of the Archipelago to the continent of India. Java,
however, became eventually the favourite abode of Hinduism,
and its language the chief recipient of Sanskrit. Through the
Javanese and Malays, Sanskrit appears to have been dissemi-
nated over the rest of the Archipelago, and even to the Phihppine
Islands. This is to be inferred,—from the greater number
of Sanskrit words in Javanese and Malay, especially in the first
of these, than in the other cultivated languages,—from their
existing in greater purity in the Javanese and Malay, and from
the errors of these two languages, both as to sense and orthogi-aphy,
haWng been copied by all the other tongues. An
approximation to the proportions of Sanskrit existing in some
of the principal languages will show that the amount constantly
diminishes as we recede from Java and Sumatra, until all
vestiges of it disappear in the dialects of Polynesia. In the
ordinary written language of Java, the proportion is about 110
in lUOO ; in Malay 50 ; in the Sunda of Java 40 ; in the Bugis,
the principal language of Celebes, 17 ; and in the Tagala, one
of the principal languages of the Philippines, about one and a
half. In the languages of Polynesia there are none at all. To
prove the superior purity of the Sanskrit in Javanese and Malay,
and the adoption of the errors of these by the other languages, I
shall adduce a few examples :—Kut'a is "a walV^ or "a house,'' in
Sanskrit, but in the Javanese, Malay, and every other language,
including the Tagala and Bisaya of the Philippines, it means a
" fortress." Sutra in Sanskrit is " a thread," but in Javanese,
Malay, and in all the other languages of the Archipelago in
;