Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra23241891roya).pdf/215

 SOME NOTES ON THE SAKAI DIALECTS OF THE MALAY PENINSULA.

BY

HUGH CLIFFORD.

"For the purpose of disclosing to us the real character of language left to itself to follow its own laws, without let or hindrance, a study of Chinese and the Turanian dialects, a study even of the jargons of the savages of Africa, Polynesia and Melanesia is far more instructive than the most minute analysis of Sanskrit or Hebrew."

"On the Stratification of Languages."—.

HE present paper deals with some of the jargons referred to by Professor in the extract from the lecture above quoted, and as the dialects spoken by the largest Sakai tribes of the Peninsula have hitherto practically escaped observation, I trust that even the scanty data in my possession may prove of interest to the readers of this Journal. I do not propose to publish at the present time an exhaustive vocabulary of any of the dialects in question, as the material in my possession is not, in my opinion, sufficiently complete to render any publication that I could now make, of permanent value. I venture to think, however, that as during the last seven years I have visited many aboriginal tribes, and have collected vocabularies of their dialects in several parts of the Peninsula, many of the facts which I have ascertained, and the conclusions to which, in my opinion, these facts point, may be new and worthy of consideration by those who care for philological study. At some future date, when I have had further