Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

470 RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES part iv
Language and Ctdture.
While the heterogeneous composition of the
languages of the Peninsula is evidence of the fact
that the tribes which speak them, besides being of
several different races, have been subjected to various
alien influences, the number and diversity of the
dialects into which the several languages fall is also
eloquent of much. One sees at once that the
Peninsula has not, in any period within our ken, been
the seat of a great unifying civilisation, and that its
aboriginal inhabitants have lagged behind in the
progressive movement which has affected South-
eastern Asia generally.
Here, as elsewhere, we seem to see the different
stages of social evolution mirrored in the phenomena
of language. First comes a stage of merely nomadic
hunting and fruit-gathering, during which it would
appear that there is comparatively little tendency to
development or differentiation of speech among the
•several fragments of a roaming race. Then the
gradual beginnings of agriculture bring with them
somewhat less temporary modes of habitation, and
restrict the wanderings of the clan or tribe within the
narrower area of a few miles around the huts it now
more regularly occupies. Its small patches of culti-
vated ground shift, it is true, from season to season,
but only within a strictly limited range. This
necessarily results in local differentiation of dialect
and consequent difficulty of intercourse with other
clans or tribes. Next, in the normal course, should
come the practice of cultivating permanently occupied
areas, partly planted with fruit trees, partly irrigated
and periodically sown and planted with rice. This, in