Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/75

 OF CELEBES. 61 hU the languages of the Archipelago, and are dis* tinguislied above all, even the Malay, for a soft and vocalic pronunciation. Of the two the Ma- cassar possesses this property in the most eminent degree. Except the soft nasal ng^ no word or syl- lable in either language ever ends in a consonant, and no consonant ever coalesces with another. The organs of the people seem hardly capable of pronouncing a consonant so situated, so that even foreign words, when used, or adopted in the lan- guage, must undergo the change implied in this principle of orthoepy, whether they be from the guttural Arabic, the grunting Dutch, or the his- sing English. The best Macassar is spoken in the state of Goa or Macassar Proper, and the worst in the principality of Turatea, the inhabitants of which are, by their fastidious neighbours, accused of injur- ing its natural softness by an uncouth pronuncia- tion. The Bugis are said to be possessed of a recon- dite and ancient language parallel to the Kawi of Java and the Pali of the Buddhist nations ; but the knowledge of it is confined to a very ievf, and I have met no specimens. The learning of the Macassars, as already men- tioned, is inconsiderable ; but the Bugis have a considerable body of literature, which consists of tales and romances founded on national legends and traditions,— translations of Malayan and Java-