Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/97

 POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES. 79 tribe or tribes in its immediate neighbourhood. 4. The Sanskrit, or ancient language of India. 5. The Arabic. 6. A few words of other Asiatic languages ; and, 7* A still smaller portion of the languages of Europe. Each of these will demand some observations. In the infancy of society, in every part of the world, men are broken into small communities, numerous in proportion to their barbarism, and, as they improve, tribes and hordes become nations, extensive according to the degree of their civiliza- tion. Languages follow the same progress. In the savage state they are great in number, — in im- proved societies few. The state of languages on the American continent, affords a convincing il- lustration of this fact, and it is not less satisfac- torily explained in that of the Indian islands. The negro races, who inhabit the mountains of the Malayan peninsula, in the lowest and most abject state of social existence, though numerically few, are divided into a great many distinct tribes, speaking as many different languages. Among the rude and scattered population of the island of Timor, it is believed that not less than forty lan- guages are spoken. On Ende and Flores we have also a multiplicity of languages ; and, among the cannibal population of Borneo, it is not improbable that many hundreds are spoken. Civilization ad- vances as we proceed westward ; and in the con-