Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/223

1769 it appears clearly that the languages given there as those of the Isles of Solomon and the Isle of Cocos are radically the identical language we met with, most words differing in little, but the greater number of consonants. The languages of New Guinea and Moyse Isle have also many words radically the same, particularly their numbers, although they are so obscured by a multitude of consonants that it is scarcely possible that they should be detected but by those who are in some measure acquainted with one of the languages. For instance the New Guinea hisson (fish) is found to be the same as the Otahite eia by the medium of ica of the Isle of Solomon; talingan (ears) is in Otahite terrea; limang (a hand) becomes lima or rima; paring (cheeks) is paperea; mattanga (eyes) mata; "they called us," says the author, "tata," which in Otahite signifies men in general.

That the people who inhabit this numerous range of islands should have originally come from one and the same place, and brought with them the same numbers and language, which latter especially have remained not materially altered to this day, is in my opinion not at all beyond belief; but that the numbers of Madagascar should be the same as all these is almost if not quite incredible. I shall give them from a book called a Collection of Voyages by the Dutch East Company, Lond. 1703, p. 116, where, supposing the author who speaks of ten numbers and gives only nine to have lost the fifth, their similarity is beyond dispute.