Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/112

 94f GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE ed ; the geographical situation of their country, or their very name. If the arguments I have addu- ced for ascertaining the situation of the people who spoke and disseminated the great Polynesian language, be of any force, we are in a state of less uncertainty with respect to them than we are iii respect to the people of whom Sanskrit was. the living speech. We guess at the country they in- habited, and we trace the influence of their lan- guage, arts, and institutions among the various tribeS; of the East Indian isles, now considerable in the degree in which each country is near to it, or more correctly, as it is accessible ; and now diminishing as it recedes from it, or is more difficult of ac- cess, until it cease altogether, where great dis- tance, or other cause of inaccessibility, have ex- eluded all connection. The supposition of a great East-Insular lan- guage, and, necessarily of a people, of whom it wag the medium of communication, is one of the very few facts which seem to carry the history of our species to a great antiquity, particularly if we sup- pose, that, in common with other great original languages, it was a language of complex structure, a character from which every tongue of the East- ern isles has long ago more completely departed, than the languages of any other portion of the globe. The superior antiquity and extent of the ii^flu-.