Page:A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language with a Preliminary Dissertation- Dissertation and Grammar, in Two Volumes, Vol. I (IA dli.granth.52714).pdf/297

 The theory which I have adopted and endeavoured to demon- strate supposes the Malay and Javanese nations to have been the instruments of diffusing language, because they inhabit those localities in which, on account of their extent and fertility, civilisation is most likely to have earliest sprung up and attained the greatest maturity,—because we know them to have been, at all times, the most civilised, powerful, and enterprising people of the countries concerned, because, historically, we can trace some of their enterprises and settlements from Sumatra to the Moluccas and the Philippines,—and, finally, because we find words of their languages, and hardly of any others, in nearly every tongue from Madagascar to Easter island, and from Formosa to New Zealand.

The assumption made in favour of the Malay and Javanese nations is entirely consonant to the history of the diffusion of languages in other parts of the world. The diffusion in every case has been effected, not by rude or weak nations, but by civilised, powerful, and enterprising ones. The ancient Greeks, by commerce and settlement, intermixed their language with all the languages of ancient Italy. The language of the Latin nation was disseminated over Italy, Spain, and France. A German people spread their language over the best parts of Britain. Another Teutonic people, who had adopted the lan- guage of France, infused a large portion of it into the Latin tongue of the preceding conquerors of that country. The people, whoever they may have been, of whom the Sanskrit was the vernacular tongue, contrived, through the instru- mentality of religion, literature, trade, settlement, and in some situations, probably also of conquest, to intermix their tongue, in more or less quantity, with all the languages of Hindustan, and of many of the countries around it, extending even to some of the remotest of the Indian islands. The Arabs infused more or less of their language into most of the idioms which extend from Spain to the Philippine islands. The Arabs and the Per- sians, although neither of them ever effected permanent con- quests in Hindustan, have had their languages indirectly infused into every idiom of that country, as well as into most of those of the Malayan islands, although here, too, they made no conquests.