Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/6

vi the primitive home of the whole family), a considerable portion of Formosa, and a few island groups lying to the eastward of the Philippines. Its eastern boundary with the Micro-Melanesian division is still somewhat imperfectly ascertained, but appears to pass east of the Marian Islands and west of the Carolines to a point somewhere in (or near) the western extremity of New Guinea. The greater part of that large island lies outside the Indonesian division, much of its coast-line falling into the Melanesian section, while a very considerable  portion is occupied by the entirely ahen Papuan languages, as is also in all probability the greater part of its imperfectly explored interior. Of the contents of the Indonesian area some details are given in Essay II, § 3, and need not be repeated here.

The scientific study of the Indonesian languages was initiated over half a century ago by two very eminent Dutch scholars, the late H. N. van der Tuuk and Professor Kern, to whom most of the good work that has been done in this field of research has been due, either directly or indirectly. Before their time many of the individual languages of the family had been studied, more or less systematically, but there had been no really scientific application of the comparative method, and consequently the conclusions arrived at by the earlier writers, such as Crawfurd and Logan, were founded on no solid basis. Many of them, in fact, have proved to be untenable and have been superseded by the sounder methods of the Dutch school. Unfortunately, however, most of the work of the modern school of Indonesian comparative philology has taken the form of articles in learned periodicals or notes in illustration of texts edited from time to time by one scholar or another; and by far the greater part of it is in Dutch. No comprehensive work dealing with the subject as a whole exists as yet in any language, and indeed it may be doubted whether the time has arrived for such a final synthesis to be made. There is still much pioneering work to be done in many outlying portions of the field.

Dr. Brandstetter, though thoroughly original in the handling of his materials, and by nationality a Swiss, is in the true