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10 BIRMAH.
the mountain frontiers. The Malays form a distinct
race, who are supposed to have proceeded originally
from the Indian archipelago, and their language is a
mixture of Coptic, Sanscrit, and Arabic. All the
other Indo-Chinese nations resemble more or less the
Mongolian and Chinese races in their figure, square
countenance, yellow complexion, strong hair, and
oblique eyes ; and are evidently of the same original
stock. Their languages, too, exhibit the same cha-
racteristic simplicity, poverty, and deficiency with the
monosyllabic languages of Tibet and China. The
three-fold division of the country corresponds to the
three distinct languages which are found prevailing :
the Birman, which is spoken in Ava and Arracan ;
the Siamese, which extends over Laos ; and the
Annamese, which is used in Tonking, Cochin China,
is said to have an
and Cambodia. Pegu, however,
original dialect called the Mon, of which too little is
known to determine its relation to either of the three
classes. These languages are more or less mixed with
Chinese and Hindoostanee, according as the nations
are situated near India or China. The sacred lan-
guage of Birmah is the Pali, which is believed to be
the same that is vernacular in Magadha or Southern
Bahar. The Birman dialect has also borrowed the
Sanscrit alphabet ; the character in common use,
however, is a round Nagari, consisting of curves following
the analogies of the square Pali, and written
from left to right like the languages of Europe.
Their legal code is one of the commentaries on the
Institutes of Menu.* In these and other respects,
* It is a singular fact, that the first version of Sir William Jones's
translation of the Institutes of Hindoo law, was made into the