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/298

 It may be objected to the explanation which I offer, that not one, but two languages are assumed to have been instrumental in diffusing the words which are common to so many tongues. The objection, however, falls to the ground, if the facts adduced prove that such has actually been the case. The history of language, however, affords several well-known examples of a similar proceeding. The Latin, with its Greek element, super- seded the current rude languages of Southern Europe. French, with its Teutonic as well as its Latin element, was engrafted on the language of the Anglo-Saxons of Britain; and Persian, with its Arabic element, on the languages of Hindustan. Even in the Malayan languages, along with the Sanskrit there came some Tâlugu, and along with Arabic some Persian.

In the intermixing of foreign languages with local idioms, it is evident that it matters little whether it has been brought about by commerce, by settlement, by religion, by conquest, or by a combination of two or more of these, if the cause has been sufficient to produce the effect. If the cause has been feeble the diffusion of language will be small in amount, and if powerful it may amount, not to intermixture alone, but even to a total supersession of the native idiom. Of all this, the Malay and Javanese languages afford examples on au obscure field, which are parallel to those which the Asiatic and European languages exhibit on conspicuous ones. The Malays have occupied the finest parts of Sumatra and their language prevails over all they occupy. The Javanese lan- guage prevails over all the finest parts of Java. This may be compared to the diffusion of the Latin tongue over Italy, France, and Spain. The Malay and Javanese languages are intermixed with all the languages of the more civilised nations of the Philippine islands, and this may be compared in degree with the mixture of Arabic in the Spanish and Portuguese languages,—of the Gothic tongues in the languages of the South of Europe, and of French in English. Conquest, indeed, has been the cause in the last cases, and commerce and settlement in the first case, but this matters little when the effect is similar. The Malay and Javanese languages are found intermixed in the Polynesian and language of Madagascar, and