Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/127

 POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES. 109 a supposition perhaps too violent, as it would carry us to a period of antiquity in Indian history on which even tradition is silent, the Sanskrit lan- guage must, through the popular and oral commu- nication which must have ensued, have undergone corruptions similar to those which it has undergone in all the vernacular tongues of India, and which, indeed, all languages must undergo when similarly situated among a barbarous people, unless when in* fused through the medium of letters, or, which in such a state of society is the same thing, through the priesthood. The class of w^ords which has been admitted is not such as by any means to warrant us in the belief that a popular intercourse existed be- tween the two people. The affinity between the two languages is, indeed, far from being radical, for the terms borrowed by the East-Insular lan- guages are generally abstract words, rendered ne- cessary to the people who adopted them in the course of improvement, and deliberately selected for the purpose, jusl as we apply ourselves to the ancient languages of Europe for technical terms. In some of the less improved languages they are seldom more than terms connected with the pecu* liar mythology of the Hindus. The class of words most liable to be introduced when two nations are mixed, is necessarily that of most familiar and con- stant application in the ordinary intercourse of life. It is so far the reverse of this with the Insu-