ance' of the Malayan language, he proceeds to point out those
more original languages from whence we may presume it to be derived.

"'The words of which it consists may be divided into three classes,
and that two of these are Hindoo and Arabic has been generally
admitted. The doubts that have arisen respect only the third, or
that original and essential part which, to the Malayan, stands in the
same relation as the Saxon to the English, and which I have asserted
to be one of the numerous dialects of the widely-extended language
found to prevail, with strong features of similarity, throughout
the archipelago on the hither side of New Guinea, and, with a less
marked resemblance, among the islands of the Pacific Ocean.... To
show the general identity, or radical connection of its dialects,
and, at the same time, their individual differences, I beg leave to
refer the reader [9] to the tables annexed to a paper on the subject
which I presented, so long ago as the year 1780, to the Society of
Antiquaries, and is printed in vol. vi. of the _Archaeologia_; also,
a table of comparative numerals, in the appendix to vol. iii. of
Captain Cook's last voyage; and likewise to the chart of ten numerals,
in two hundred languages, by the Rev. R. Patrick, recently published
in Valpy's _Classical, Biblical and Oriental Journal_.'

"Again, Marsden states:

"'But whatever pretensions any particular spot may have to precedence
in this respect, the so wide dissemination of a language common to all
bespeaks a high degree of antiquity, and gives a claim to originality,
as far as we can venture to apply that term, which signifies no more
than the state beyond which we have not the means, either historically
or by fair inference, of tracing the origin. In this restricted sense
it is that we are justified in considering the main portion of the
Malayan as original, or indigenous, _its affinity to any Continental
tongue not having yet been shown_; and least of all can we suppose
it connected with the monosyllabic, or Indo-Chinese, with which it
has been classed.'

"When we find an original language bearing no traces of being derived
from any Continental tongue, we must conclude the people likewise to
be original, in the restricted sense, or to have emigrated with their
language from some source hitherto unknown. The Sanscrit and Arabic
additions to the original stock are well marked, though the period
of the introduction of the former is hidden i