Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/137

 EAST-INSULAR LANGUAGES* 119 Among European languages, the Portuguese alone has exerted any considerable influence on the Polynesian languages, and this is nearly confined to the Malay. The character of the Portuguese intercourse with India, was, from the beginning, widely different from that of other European na- tions. They were professed conquerors, and sub- jugated and colonized to the extent of their ability. They came into direct contact with the natives of the country, and caused the effect of their religious and civil institutions to be practically felt. The go- vernment of other European nations has been a go- vernment of opinion and management, effected through the instrumentality of the natives of the country, in the course of which, the object seems rather to have been to avoid a familiarity of inter- course, than to court it. The difference is disco- vered in the effect produced upon language, and has been forwarded by the congenial softness of a southern dialect, opposed to the roughness of our guttural northern tongues. The Dutch, in parti- cular, is so dissonant and so repugnant in sound to the smoothness of the Insular languages, that few words of it can be articulated at all ; and even the easiest are so metamorphosed, that it will defy conjecture to guess at them. Who, for example^ can recognise in the Javanese word ratpani, the Dutch words Raad van Indie, the famous " Coun- cil of the Indies?'^