THE MALAYO—POLYNESIAN THEORY.

 

THE MALAYO-POLYNESIAN THEORY.

By John Fraser, LL.D., Sydney.

[For Abbreviations and Geographical List see Appendix.]

I.

A few weeks ago, I was reading a volume of the Journal and Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland—that for 1839—and in it I found a vocabulary of the dialect spoken in the Maldive Islands. Many of the words there seemed familiar to me, and so I proceeded to examine them; and now I think they throw some light on the Malayo-Polynesian theory as to the origin of the languages of the South Seas.

The Maldives are a group of many small islands, about 400 miles to the west of Ceylon. From Ceylon they received their population some hundreds of years ago; and in token of their connexion with Ceylon, the Sultan of the Maldives still sends every year to the Ceylon Government a present of some of the handsome mats which his people make. A mere inspection of this vocabulary shows that the language is Indian—a mixture of Dravidian and Pâli, and thus the same in character as the Singhalese. In the Maldives, there may be a small proportion of Persian-Arabic words, for the inhabitants are Mohammedans. The Pâli is one of the Prâkrit or original vernacular languages of India of the Aryan family; it is the sacred language of the Singhalese and of all other Buddhists, for it is the language of their holy books, and in it Sakya Muni preached to and taught his disciples in the sixth century B.C. The Pâli is thus an ancient language, and was widely used two thousand years ago, not only in India and Ceylon, but also in the Eastern Peninsula, where the Burmese and other races are at this hour Buddhist and speak dialects founded on the Pâli. From this peninsula the Malays are said to have come about six or seven hundred years ago.1 It is therefore historically possible that the Malay language may contain a Pâli - 242 element in it, akin to the Pâli in Maldivean, in Singhalese, and in Sanskrit; for Sanskrit is only the “polished” literary form of the Aryan speech of which Pâli is one of the Prâkrits. Therefore, if I find in the Malay any words which may be justly associated with similar forms in Pâli and Sanskrit, I am primâ facie doing a reasonable thing in saying that their common origin is at least possible.

Further, the earliest population of Ceylon was Dravidian and pre-Aryan, and a considerable proportion of it is so still—of the same race as the darker-coloured people who now occupy most of the Indian countries south of the Vindhya Mountains, and especially on the Coromandel and Malabar Coasts, from which many immigrants must have originally come to Ceylon. In the forests of this island are the Veddahs, a still earlier black race, rude and untamed, who are thought to be akin to the blacks of Australia. The Dravidian tribes of the Dekkan and Southern India are descended from that black race which occupied the whole of India before the Aryans came in; and some ethnologists believe that portions of that black race were, by the Aryan invasion of India, driven onwards into the Eastern Peninsula, Indonesia, and Oceania, and that the Melanesians near our shores are their modern representatives.

Now, if that is so, it is not extravagant to allege that the Maldive vocabulary has some traces of a connexion with Melanesian words, for I can certainly show in the Maldive language a Dravidian element, which has come from Ceylon and Southern India. And, if the Melanesians are of Indian origin, they and their language must be connected to some extent with the black Dravidian races there.

And, again, if we can satisfy ourselves that the Maldive language is akin to the Malay, and that both originally have a close relation to Indian languages, we can then see the tide of migration flowing, on the one hand, to the east and south-east from India into Further India and what is now called the Malay Archipelago; and, on the other, from India and Ceylon west and south-west into the Maldives and onwards into Madagascar, where the reigning language is well known to be a branch of the so-called Malayo-Polynesian family. Southern India would thus be the apex of a triangle, representing by two of its sides the south-eastern and south-western direction of the same mixture of Pâli and Dravidian dialects. It seems to me very difficult in any other way than this to account for the presence of a language in Madagascar, not far from the coast of Africa, which is clearly much the same as that of Samoa, in the middle of the South Seas—120 degrees of longitude apart.

And, if this relationship between the Malay and Maldivean languages should be established, the whole Malayo-Polynesian theory falls to the ground; for then, the Polynesian is not derived from the Malay, but the resemblance which some words in Polynesian bear to the Malayan arises from the fact that the Polynesian, the Malay, - 243 the Maldivean, and the Malagasy are all sister dialects, springing from the same language-stocks in India.

Considering the importance of this inquiry, I regret very much that the Maldivean vocabulary which I have is so scanty and inadequate for a full investigation; and I should be glad to know where I can find a fuller account of the language of the Maldive islanders. I will, however, now examine what I have of it.

A Comparison of Maldive, Indian, Malay, and Oceanic Words.

• 1. In the Maldives, an elder brother is called bébe, a younger brother is koku; in Malay, the eldest brother of the family is abang, and any younger brother is kākak. Here it is certain that kākak and koku are the same word, and yet it cannot be pretended that the Malays of Indonesia ever settled in the Maldives so as to convey their word thither. Then, again, bébe and abang are both taken from baba or papa, a common word for ‘father.’ A respectful way of addressing a man older than one's self is to call him ‘father.’ ‘Father’ in Mal. is bapa, in Mald. baffa.
• 2. ‘Language’ in Mal. is bhasa, in Mald. bas, in Sk. bhash, ‘to speak’; in P. bhāsā, ‘speech’; in Dr. pesu, ‘speak’; in some islands of the N.-H. pasa, bisa, vosa, visi, (v)asaig, ‘speak.’ Are these not all the same word? and is it possible that the Ebūdan words of black men of the N.-H. can have come from the Mongolian Malays? Is it not more rational to say that they have all come from the same source in India?
• 3. In the Mald., wida-ni is ‘lightning,’ where ni is a termination; wida is the Sa. (wila) uīla, ‘lightning’; Ef. says fili, ‘lightning,’ and Fiji says liva (by transposition for vila); the common Australian word for ‘fire’ is wi, and N.-B. has mi-mi, ‘lightning’—all from the same root ma, ‘to shine’; Sk. bhâ, ‘to shine, to be bright’; mahas, ‘light, lustre.’ The P. is bhāsā, ‘light, radiance,’ and vijju (for vid-ju), ‘lightning.’ Now, I ask, How did wida get to the Maldiyes, liva (for vila) to Fiji, uīla (for wila) to Samoa, and wi to Australia, if they did not come from one common source? I need not add that in phonology the change of d into l is indisputable; so wida=wila.
• 4. ‘Marriage’ in Mal. is kawin; in Mald. it is kaweni. Did the Maldiveans borrow their name for marriage from the Malays? They must have been a poor lot if they had not a word of their own for so common a thing as a marriage, but had to borrow one from abroad.
• 5. ‘Pig’ in Saibai, an island of T.-S., occupied by pure Papuans, is burum; on the coast of N.-G., just opposite, ‘pig’ is baroma; in Mald. it is (b)uru; in Mal. it is babi; in Sa. (b)alou and pua-ka; in Mlk. bara-mban; and in T. puka. The root idea in all is ‘fat’; Sk. pa, pi-van, ‘fat’; Sa. pu-ta, ‘fat.’ How is it that the Mald. 'uru, the To. burum, the M. boro-ma, and Daudai baro-ma, and the Sa. alou (for baro-u) are so much alike? Have these people all borrowed from one - 244 another the name of so common an animal as the ‘pig’? Can the Samoans have borrowed from the blacks of T.-S., and they again from the Maldives, 70 degrees away?
• 6. In Mald., ‘oar’ is fa-li; in M. ba-ra (that is, bala); Epi says velu and ba-beluo; N.-B. says wo; and the Samoans and other Polynesians, fo'e and foi. The Malay has no corresponding word. But how is it that the blacks of Motu and Epi have the same word for ‘oar’ as the Mohammedans of the Maldives? Did these blacks import their word from those distant islands? The Malays did not bring it, for they have not the word. Then, in the Samoan word fo'e the (') stands for the elision of a consonant, usually k, but in this case evidently r, l, which are pronounced almost alike by these islanders; and wo again in N.-B. is the same root, but without the ending li or le. Thus the Samoans and other brown Polynesians, the blacks of Melanesia, and the Maldiveans of Indian origin all use the same word for ‘oar.’ How is this? Can we not best account for this fact by saying that these people, some way or other, all got their languages from the same fountain, but its waters were not Malayan?
• 7. The Maldives call the ‘deep sea’ kadu. Now, du is a noun formative in Dravidian, in Motuan, and in Australian; the root, therefore, is ka, which in Sk. means ‘to burn, to be hot, to be sharp’; in fact, kadu is a Tamil (Dravidian) word meaning ‘to be sharp and pungent.’ But, in its form, kadu is not Sanskrit; for du is a purely Dr. termination. The Maldiveans therefore got this word from Southern India. In its meaning it corresponds with the Latin sal, ‘salt, the sea,’ for the sea is the salt water. In Eastern and other languages, the vowel u is apt to become i, like the German ii, that is, the modified u; for Müller is the English name Miller. Thus, kadu may become kadi. Now, in all the Oceanic languages, there is the constant interchange of k and t, as in Samoan at this hour. Therefore kadi becomes tadi, and that is the M. word for ‘sea-water.’2 Of the same origin are the Ebudan words for ‘sea’ throughout the New Hebrides, tasi, tahi, tas, tis, tai, tei, the Fiji tathi, and the Samoan tai; but tasi, tahi, tas also mean ‘salt,’ like Lat. sal. It seems to me that here the Melanesian and Polynesian words for ‘sea’ are clearly traceable to the Tamil kadu, which is thoroughly Dravidian in form, although its root ka exists also in the Aryan languages, as in Greek κα-ι-ω, ‘I burn.’ And the Malay has no share in the parentage of these words for ‘sea.’ He says ‘deep sea,’ lāūt; ‘inland sea,’ tasek—words which come, no doubt, from the same root ka, but are not formed from it in the same way as tadi, tasi. For ‘sharp’ the Malay from the same root says tajam, where the j stands for a d. From these examples I would strongly urge my opinion that the Samoan and other - 245 Polynesian dialects are not Malayan, and that the Polynesian, Melanesian, and Malayan languages are all sprung from the same root-source in India.
• 8. The Maid. for ‘small’ is kuda; the P. is khuddo. This I take to be the origin of kutu, which is the word for ‘louse’ in Malay, and, in slightly varied forms, in all Melanesia. To the P. khuddo, ‘small,’ the corresponding Sk. words are kîta, ‘an insect, a worm’; kotika, ‘a worm’; chutt, ‘to become small.’ For ‘a louse,’ the Sk. has keça-kîta, ‘a head-insect.’ The Malay for ‘small,’ is kete. Strange to say, one or two Australian tribes have kutta to mean ‘a louse.’ Now, there seems to me to be no reason to doubt that the Malay got his kutu from the Pâli khuddo; and if the Malay got it there, is it not likely that the Melanesians and Polynesians also got it there, independently of the Malay? For, on the evidence, the Malayo-Polynesian theory would prove too much; it would prove that the Melanesians also are Malays, for they too have the word kutu; and so that argument would bring us near to a reductio ad absurdum.
• 9. The next Mald. word is futu, ‘a boy.’ This is the P. poto, the ‘young’ of any animal, and the Mal. muda, ‘young,’ and budak or buyong, ‘a boy.’ The Sk. putra (for puta) is ‘son,’ and pôta is ‘young’; old Latin putus is ‘a boy,’ Lat. pu-er, ‘a boy’; pull-us, ‘a chicken,’ Gr. pōlos, Eng. ‘a foal.’ I do not know that there is any cognate word in the Dr. languages of India, although probably there is. But, is it not clear that these examples show the Malay to have, in some of its words at least, a close relation to the Aryan languages of India and Europe? It has, no doubt, other elements mixed with this, but one of its sources is surely Indian. Now, if we find that the Malagasy is similar to the Malay, shall we say that the Malagasy is taken from the Malay? No; I say that they both came from India, and that the same stream bifurcated through the Maldives to Madagascar, and through the Eastern Peninsula into what is now Malaysia. When they want to say ‘son,’ the Maldiveans change futu into fulu, and this change seems to me to assist in explaining the origin of the Latin fīlius, which has so much perplexed Latin etymologists; for it would thus be only a variant form of putus, pullus, hence ī for ū.3 N.-B. has bul, ‘young, a youth,’ and S. has (b)ul-wo, ‘young’; but I am not sure that these are connected with our fulu, for the Tukiok has bara-na, ‘young,’ and An. has in-hal-av, ‘a youth.’ These seem rather to be allied to the Sk. bâla, ‘young, a child’; phal, ‘to burst, to bear fruit.’ That reminds me that I have omitted to state that the Mald. futu, and the other words I quoted under it, are connected with the Sk. root bhû, ‘to come into being’; bhûta, ‘a living being, a son, a child.’
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• 10. The Mald. suffix auxiliary verb, ‘to do, to make,’ is kur-ang. This is the Mal. kar-ja, the M. kar-aia, and the Sk. kri (kar), and probably the tari of Duke of York Island, and the tarea of Santo.
• 11. ‘Fish’ in the Maldives is called mas, in Maewo and Santo masi, mansi. How is so striking a resemblance to be accounted for? The Malay has no claim here, for his word for fish is ika. But the Sk. for ‘fish’ is matsya, and the P. is maccho. I infer that the ancestors of some of the Melanesian tribes must have been, at some time, in India.
• 12. ‘Spirit, life’ in Mald. is ruha; in Mal. ruh is ‘spirit.’ In Mald. handi is ‘a demon, a sprite,’ in Mal. antu, in Sa. aitu. Observe here that di in handi was originally du, as in No. 7 above. Did the Maldives here borrow from the Malay, and the Samoan from the Malay? Have they not all been drinking from the same fountain?
• 13. The Maldiveans say ti-beng, ‘to stop or remain’; the native dialect of North Behar (India) says thi-ka-b, ‘remain’; the Mal. has ting-gal, ‘remain’; N.-B. has ti-gal, ki, koko (k for t); the Sa. is tu, ‘to stand’; Fiji has toka, ‘stand’; tiko, ‘stay.’ Many islands of the New Hebrides say toko, ‘stay.’ The root-form of all these words is the Sk. s-tha, ‘to stand’; Lat. s-to. Has the Malay here produced the Ebudan toko, toka, tiko? Are they not all, Malay and Melanesian alike, more closely related to the Maithili thikab, the Mald. ti-beng, the root being s-tha, from which the Pâli has thanam, ‘standing’? The Malay root ti- cannot produce the others in to-, but the Pâli-Sk. tha- can produce them both.
• 14. For ‘light, clear day, dawn,’ the Maldiveans say ali, and for ‘fire’ ali-fang. Here the -fang is a causative suffix, from the root fa, ba, ‘to make.’ It thus corresponds with the Lat. -ficus (in beneficus, &c.), which also comes from the same root. The word-makers were right who first said ali-fang for ‘fire,’ for ‘fire’ is the ‘light-producer.’ The word for ‘fire’ in Mal. is api, but this must be a different word from ali, for p cannot change into l. But in Ef. ali-ati is ‘daylight,’ and in Mlk., Ef., and S. alo, ale, elo, ial is ‘sun’ and An. has ahli, ‘to burn.’ In Sa. ali-ali is ‘to appear,’ and alo-alo is ‘sunbeam’; the P. alo-ko is ‘light’; the Mal. ārī is ‘day,’ and, in some parts of the Archipelago, kali-ha is ‘sun,’ and gal-ap, is ‘lightning.’ In Fiji kalo-kalo is a ‘star.’ The root of all the words in this paragraph is the Aryan ka, ‘to burn,’ as in Greek κα-ιω, but the nearest approach to them in form is the Dr. kâlu, ‘to burn.’ I conclude, therefore, that the Melanesian and Samoan words do not come from the Malay ari, but that the Malay and all the rest come from a common source in India.
• 15. That the idea of ‘black’ is connected with ‘burning’ is proved by the derivation of ‘Ham,’ ‘Ethiopian,’ and other words; hence the Mald. kalu, ‘black,’ is the Dr. kâlu just quoted. The Dr. also has kar, ‘black.’ The Sk. is kala; the P. is kalo, ‘black, dark blue’; the Mal. is gāl-ap, gol-īta, klam, ‘dark’ (cf. Latin clam, ‘secretly’ = ‘keep it - 247 dark’). In M., kore-ma is ‘black,’ and in N.-B. korog; Miriam Island in T.-S. says gole-gole, ‘black.’ In the N.-H., Epi says me-koli-ko, and Malo says (k)uri-ca, ‘black.’ In Samoan, (k)uli-'uli is ‘black,’ and that is almost the same as the Ebūdan words of Malo and Epi. How are we to account for all these resemblances? It is absurd to say that the Malays, who are a recent people, have spread them abroad everywhere. The Ebūdans and Papuans are far more ancient in situ than the Malays, and cannot have received their languages from them.
• 16. ‘To blaze’ in Mald. is hulu, which also means ‘live embers.’ In Tukiok huru-ru is ‘blaze,’ and in Ma. huru is ‘the glow’ of the sun or of fire. Do not these words closely approximate to each other? and yet it cannot be said that the brown Maories got their word from the black Tukiok islanders, nor they from the Mohammedans of the Maldive Islands. They are all from a common source in India, from which also came the cognate Latin (b)uro, ‘I burn.’ That root-source is ba, ma, as in Sk. bhâ, ‘to shine’; bhâlu, ‘sun.’ The Mal. bara, ‘embers,’ is from the same root, and the Sa. sulu, ‘torch,’ is the same as the Ma. huru. ‘Burn’ in Mal. is bākar, and ‘blaze’ is niala. The T.-S. blacks say (h)urem, ‘to burn,’ and the Dravidians of India say uri. It is clear that urem is close to uri, but very far from the Malay form bakar.
• 17. The Mald. fura-na is ‘life.’ Here I observe at once that, in the Maldives, -na is used as a formative to nouns, as it is in the whole of Oceania, except Malaysia. Nothing is more familiar to students of the languages of the Pacific than this na, either as a prefix or affix to noun-forms. The root fura has f and r for b and l, for the Pâli original is bala-bi, ‘to live.’ This bala is extremely like the Fijian bula, ‘to live,’ and the Sa. (b)ola, ‘life.’ Eromanga and Efate have moli, mole, mōl (for bula), and the forms ma-uri, ma-uli, used elsewhere in that group, I compare with the Sa. ola (for bula). I take them to be really adjectives formed with the prefix ma, as in many Samoan words. The original root of all is the Sk. bhû (bhava), ‘to live, to exist, to become,’ whence Sk. bhûta, ‘a living being,’ and Lat. vita, ‘life,’ as in No. 9 above.
• 18. The Mald. buri is ‘back’; and ‘aft’ or ‘behind’ is furagas. This is certainly the Sa. muli, ‘behind, the end’; Ma. (i-)muri, ‘behind’; S. puli-na, ‘back’; N.-B. muru-na, ‘back.’ The Mal. has būrīt, bala-kang, ‘back.’ The Pâli root is parā, ‘away, back, aside,’ from which all these words come. The M. muri-na, ‘the back’ of anything, and muri-muri, ‘outside,’ are very close to the Pâli and Maldivean in meaning.

I might go on to examine in detail many other words in this Maldivean vocabulary, but to do so would occupy too many pages of this Journal. I will therefore note down briefly a few other resemblances, writing the Maldivean always first and then its cognates.

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• 19. ‘All,’ huri-ha. Cf. P. puro, pura-no, ‘full’; Sk. prî, ‘to fill,’ pi-par-mi, ‘I fill’; N.-G. mura, ‘all’; N.-B. para, vuru, ‘all’; Ef. bura, ‘full’; Mal. bulah, ‘complete’; Ma. poro, ‘to be finished’; Oceanic se-fulu, sanga-furu, 10; for ten is ‘all’ the fingers.
• 20. ‘Ascend,’ drang. Cf. Ma. ara; Dr. eru, ‘rise up.’
• 21. ‘Blood,’ lé. Cf. Maithili, lal, ‘red’; M. ra-ra, ‘blood’; Mal. dārah, ‘blood’; N.-H. ra, ta, ja, nda, dra, dai, rai, de, ‘blood’; Papuak, ta-ra, ‘red’; Loy. e-dra, dera-dera, ‘red.’ In Polynesian, la, ra, are restricted to the meaning of ‘sun.’ Sk. root is dah, ‘to burn’; râga, ‘red colour’; rak-ta, ‘red.’
• 22. ‘Beat,’ ta-lang;; -lang here is a verbal suffix. Cf. Sa. ta, ‘to strike’; ta-ta, ‘to flap the wings’; tatau, ‘to tattoo’; M. da-da-ba, ‘to beat’; Sk. tad; P. ta-leti, ‘to beat.’ There is no similar word in Malay.
• 23. ‘Breast,’ uro-ma-ti. The ti here is a suffix corresponding to the Dr. du, and ma is a very common suffix in Polynesian. With uro, ‘breast,’ cf. Sa, su-su, ‘breast’; uso, ‘a brother or sister’ (i.e., of the same ‘breast’); P. uro, uram, ‘breast.’ The Sk. root is su, ‘suck,’ from which Curtius takes the Greek vios, ‘son.’
• 24. ‘Bitter,’ hiti. Cf. M. hisi, ‘pain’; Papuak idi-ta, ‘bitter’; Ma. ti-ti, ‘shine’; Sa. tio, ‘sharp,’ ti-ga, ‘ache, pain’; Fiji dhila, ‘shine’; P. ditthi, ‘splendour,’ titta-ko, ‘bitter.’ The root is di (for da), ‘to burn’; dhi aspirated from di accounts for hiti.
• 25. ‘Day,’ duas. Cf. Loy. dhö, du, ‘sun’; Epi, ndae, ‘sun.’ Sk. root is dah, ‘shine’; Pâli diva, ‘by day.’
• 26. ‘Die,’ maru-wedang. Cf. Epi and Ambrym maro, mar, ‘die’; P. maro, ‘death’; Aust. balu-n, ‘dead.’ Sk. root mri (mar), ‘to die.’
• 27. ‘Drink,’ bong. Cf. Mlk., S., and Maewo bui, pei, mbei; Polynesian wai, ‘water’; Aust. ba-do, ‘water.’ Sk. root pâ, ‘to drink’; P. payi, ‘drinking,’ payo, ‘water.’
• 28. ‘Eat,’ kang; ‘food,’ kata. Cf. N.-H. caig, hag, kani; Papuak ania, an, yan; Polynesian kai. Sk. root khad, ad; Pâli ada.
• 29. ‘Eye,’ lo. Cf. Ef. lo, leo, le, ‘to see’; An. lah, ‘shine’; M. roha, ‘to look.’ Sk. root las, ‘shine,’ lok, ‘to see’; P. las-ati, ‘shine’; Sk. dah, ‘burn,’ da, ‘cut.’ Cf. also Sa. la, ‘sun,’ from its burning brightness.
• 30. ‘Half,’ ‘a part,’ báe. Cf. Sa. va-vae, ‘to divide’; Dr. pâl, ‘a part,’ pa-gu, ‘to divide,’ pa-di, ‘half’; Sk. phal, ‘to divide’; Hebrew, (pâlâh), ‘to divide.’
• 31. ‘Hot,’ hunu; ‘lime,’ huni. Cf. M. huru-ru, ‘flame’; Ma. huru, the ‘glow’ of the sun, ‘warm,’ &c. See No. 16.
• 32. ‘Knee,’ kaku. Cf. N.-B. kaki-na, ‘leg,’ and To. (Miriam Island) kokne, ‘knee.’
• 33. ‘Large,’ bodu. Cf. M. bada.
• 34. ‘Leg,’ fa. Cf. M. ae, Sa. vae. The root is ba, ‘to go’; Greek βα-ινω.
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• 35. ‘Pleasant’ (to the senses), molu; ‘soft,’ madu. Cf. Sa. mali-e, ‘pleasant’; An. mul-mul, ‘soft’; Tuk. malua, ‘soft.’
• 36. ‘Ripe’ (of fruit), fau. Cf. N.-B. mau and masi, N.-H. matu, ma, Ma. mo, mau, Sa. matua, Mal. masak. Sk. root ma, ba, ‘to burn’; P. pacā, ‘ripe,’ pacati, ‘to cook.’
• 37. ‘Scissors,’ katuru. Cf. N.-B. kut-kut, Ma. kuti-kut. Dr. root kadu, ‘sharp,’ as in No. 7 above.
• 38. ‘Dog,’ balu. Cf. To. omai, Sa. mai-le, ‘dog.’ Root ba, as in Eng. bark, bay; Fr. aboyer.
• 39. ‘To smart, to throb,’ kar-ang. Cf. M. he-gara, ‘to smart’ (he is a reflexive prefix), gara-gara, ‘hot’; N.-B. karat, ‘to bite’; Tuk. garo, ‘to desire’ earnestly; Ma. koro-tu, ‘desirous’; Mal. goring, ‘to broil.’ The root is ka, as in Sk. kam, ‘to burn,’ kâma, ‘love’; Gr. κα-ιω, ‘I burn.’
• 40. ‘Spider,’ maku-nu. Cf. M. mage-la. See No. 44 below.
• 41. ‘Thunder,’ gu-guri. Cf. N.-B. kurug, Fiji kuru, S. ururu. Sk. root ku, ‘to make a noise.’
• 42. ‘Water,’ feng (for fa-ng). Cf. Polynesian wai, ‘water’; Sa. (chiefs) tau-fa; Aust. bado.
• 43. ‘Weak’ (faint), bali. Cf. Sa. vai-vai, Ef. mai-lua. From the same root as ‘Die.’
• 44. ‘Web’ (of spider), wa; ‘weave,’ wiyang. Cf. M. vala-vala, ‘cobweb’; Sa. leve-leve (for vala-vala). Sk. root va, ve, vap, ‘to weave.’
• 45. ‘Face,’ munu. Cf. Dr. mun, ‘before’; Brahui (of Beluchistan, akin to the Dravidian) mon, ‘face.’ The original root is ma, ‘to begin,’ which in Sk. takes the form of bhû (bhava), ‘to begin to be,’ and from which also comes the Poly. ma-ta, ‘face,’ ‘the beginning or point of anything,’ Sa. a-mata, ‘to begin;’ but Poly. mata, ‘eye,’ comes from the original root ma, ‘to see.’ Thus, the two words mata, ‘face,’ and mata, ‘eye,’ are quite distinct in their origin, and should be entered in our Polynesian dictionaries as two separate words.

In addition to these forty-five examples from the Maldive Islands, there are two or three others which I may be permitted to introduce here, for I think that alone they would go far to prove that the Malayan and Oceanic languages have an intimate connexion with those of India.

1. The Malay word for ‘female’ is be-tina. Here again is the Polynesian suffix -na, but I do not know that the stem beti exists anywhere in Polynesia, unless it has assumed the form -fine in fa-fine, ‘woman;’ for the change of b into f, and of t or d into n are quite lawful. Now, one would suppose that if Malayan is an independent language, it will have a word of its own for so common and essential an idea as ‘female,’ ‘woman.’ And yet I can prove that betina is - 250 borrowed from India, for I have already quoted the Sk. word bhûta, ‘a living being,’ ‘a son,’ ‘a child,’ from the root bhû, ‘to come into being.’ Observe that the noun bhûta is sufficiently general in meaning to include ‘a son,’ ‘a daughter,’ and even ‘a spirit or demon;’ in which last sense the Indian bhûtas are malevolent sprites. This word bhûta passes into Maithili and becomes beta, ‘a son,’ beti, ‘a daughter.’ And who can deny that beti-na, the Malay word for ‘female,’ is formed from beti?

2. Among the Motuans, who are brown Papuans occupying part of the South Coast of British New Guinea, the word for ‘sleep’ is mahuta. As they are coast men it is possible that they are descended from immigrant Polynesians, who, on my theory, landed there when driven out of the islands of Indonesia by the invading Malays. Their brown color would thus indicate the mixture of a fairer race with the native Papuan blacks. At all events, their word for ‘sleep’ is a foreigner. And yet one would suppose that a word for so essential a thing as sleep should form part of the stock-in-trade of any race that claims an independent origin. If, therefore, I can prove that the Motuan word for sleep is Indian, I have proved thereby that either the ancestors of these Motuans came from India, or were once long enough in contact with some Indian race to adopt from them even the common words of their language. And, first, I observe that mahuta has the initial syllable ma which occurs as a prefix in many Polynesian words. Then, the verb ‘to sleep’ in Maithili is sutab, of which the b is the infinitive consonant; the remainder is suta, which, as every Polynesian linguist knows, can become hula. Is there now any doubt that the Motuan speech, in some of its words at least, has close relations with India? And mahuta has no connexion with the Malays, for their word for sleep is tidor. Nor have I found a trace of the word mahuta anywhere in all Oceania except among the true Papuans of the Torres' Straits Islands, who say ute-id, ‘sleep.’ Hence I consider it certain, that these Torresians and these Motuans have, in some way or other, been connected with India in the far past; and my theory tends to show how such a connexion is possible.

In these forty-five examples I have admitted no vowel or consonant changes which are not well established in philology; indeed, in most instances, the identity of the words quoted is clear without any change; it is also noticeable that the Papuan, Papuak, and Ebudan analogies—taken from among the Oceanic blacks—are the most striking, as might be expected, if all these black tribes came originally from Southern India. The analogies also from Samoa and New Zealand are remarkable. I shall endeavour to account for these further on. The only way in which the Malayo-Polynesian theory can explain away all these identities is to allege that the Malay race peopled the Maldive Islands, which, in the face of history and probability, is a preposterous supposition. The likelihood is that these islands got their first population - 251 from India, at a much earlier time than the Ceylon tradition points to; for the monsoons have always been in these regions, and the north-east monsoon would easily and rapidly carry a vessel from the Malabar coast or from Ceylon to the Maldives by misadventure. Our knowledge of similar experiences in the Pacific in quite recent times shows that a large boat's crew of Polynesians may be drifted ten or twelve hundred miles by storms to unknown islands, and the Maldives are only four hundred miles from Ceylon. Then, if Dravidians and Singhalese once reached the Maldives in that manner, and settled there, the tide of emigration thither established itself without difficulty, for the south-west monsoon would carry boats from the islands back to the coasts of India. I have therefore no hesitation in believing that the Maldives were known to the early native races of Southern India, and occupied by them many centuries before the Malay existed as a race and language in Indonesia. Thus the Malay origin of these Maldivean words is to me impossible.

Another argument in my favour can be got from the terminational forms in both languages. The Maldivean words I have quoted commonly end with the nasal ng, or the vowels a, u, i; seldom with o; and the Malayan has the very same peculiarities, although it has endings in other consonants, as k, t, r, &c., more frequently than the Maldivean. In Malayan, the causative verb is men, meng, used as a prefix (from the root ba, fa); in Maldivean, it is fang, wang, beng, used as a suffix. In most of these respects the Pâli resembles both Malayan and Maldivean, for it delights in the vowel endings a, u, i, but has the o ending more frequently than they have; it has also the anusvara ending to many of its words, which makes a final -am, for instance, in nouns to be sounded as -ang. This again brings it near not only to Maldivean and Malayan, but also to Samoan; for those who know Samoan will remember how frequently nouns have -anga as an ending, that is merely the Pâli -am with the anusvara, and vocalised by the addition of a to suit the Polynesian habit of pronunciation.

The mention of the Samoans reminds me now of another point in favour of my contention that the Polynesian dialects come from Indian and not from Malayan lands. The Samoan, as is well known, has chiefs' language; that is, in addressing a chief, the speaker must not use certain words of everyday speech, but must substitute for them certain others which are specially reserved for that purpose, and other words, different from these, are used when a high chief is spoken to; thus, in Samoan, when a common man eats, that is 'ai, but to a chief you must say tau-mafa, and to a high chief tau-te for ‘eat.’ Exactly the same gradations are found in the Maldives, for, when you acquiesce in the action or saying of a commoner there, you say héu (‘good, well, all right’), to a man of the middle class you say labba, but to the highest class ádés; ‘eat’ is kang, higher is keng-ballawang, highest is fariolukuluw-wáng; ‘walk’ is heng-gang, higher is duru- - 252 wang, highest is wadai-gennawang. Now, in the Maithili of Behar—the Pâli country—quite a similar gradation of rank is marked by the language; for there the rank both of the subject and the object, with transitive verbs, causes the personal forms of these verbs to vary in four ways; thus, in each of the following sentences, the verb ‘sees’ would have a different form—(1) He (a king) sees him (a king); (2) He (a king) sees him (a slave); (3) He (a slave) sees him (a king); (4) He (a slave) sees him (a slave). Analogies in Samoan would run thus: Two high chiefs talking would say taute to each other; a high chief speaking to an inferior chief would say tau-mafa to him; but either of these, addressing a commmoner, would say 'ai; while a commoner would say 'ai to another commoner. There can be no doubt that the Maithili custom, in this respect, is far anterior in point of time to the Samoan. How is this resemblance between them to be accounted for? The custom is not Malayan, for the Malay has it not. It is true that in his intercourse with his superiors he uses very elevated language to describe them, and depreciating terms for himself, as ‘your servant,’ ‘your beast of burden’; but that is not the Samoan way, nor is it peculiar to the Malay; for it is Eastern. Something like the Samoan custom prevails at the Courts of Java and Bali. A countryman coming into the presence of his rulers must use to them and in their hearing certain words and phrases different from those of his ordinary speech; but these courtly expressions are mostly taken from the Indian languages. The Bengáli also and other languages of India have ‘respectful’ and ‘disrespectful’ forms of the verb; but I do not know that there is anywhere so close a correspondence as that between the Maithili, the Maldivean, and the Samoan.

My explanation of the whole matter under discussion is briefly this: The main officina gentium for Oceania long, long ago was India. The whole extent of that peninsula was at a very early period, probably more than twenty centuries before the Christian era, occupied by a pure black race, which I call Hamite; later on, there came into it a Cushite race, also black, but more mixed than the Hamites. These two black races gradually spread onwards into Further India, Indonesia, Australia, Melanesia, and the whole of the eastern islands of the Pacific—the Hamites first and the Cushites after them. Traces of these black races are to be found in all of these regions, and often of the two races apart, as in Australia and the New Hebrides; for the northern Ebūdans are in many respects very different from the southern, and the Tasmanians differed somewhat from the Australians. In Malacca there are dwarf blacks, as in the heart of Africa, and there are negroid blacks in the Philippines and even in Japan. In Eastern Polynesia the aboriginal black population must have been very scanty, as these islands are so far removed from the Asian continent, and consequently the traces of their occupation have been swamped by the - 253 subsequent flow of Polynesian immigrants; but I ascribe the cyclopean structures on Ponape Island and Easter Island to these earliest settlers (for the black races everywhere—in India, Babylonia, Egypt—have shown a liking for hugeness of architecture); and in some of the islands of the eastern Pacific, as Mangaia, the inhabitants are at this hour decidedly blacker and coarser than other Polynesians, as if from a larger infusion of black blood mingling with the brown men. Fiji also has two black races, those of the interior and those of the coast, and these show important differences in customs; so also in New Guinea. In many of the Indonesian islands there are aboriginal black races in the mountains of the interior, and so also in various places in Further India. In fine, I think it could be established with the utmost probability that two black races, proceeding from India in succession, peopled the whole of the islands of Oceania.

Then, long after the Aryans had taken possession of the Indian plain, a Prâkrit-speaking fair race from the two Indias came to occupy the chief islands in Indonesia, driving the black aborigines into the mountains there, or further east towards New Guinea and Fiji; these are the ancestors of the present brown Polynesians. The incomers may have intermingled to some extent with the blacks, but probably not much, for the brown Polynesians are mainly Caucasian in physique and character.4

Then, in the more recent centuries of the Christian era, a race of Mongolian origin came into Indonesia from the Further Peninsula and drove the Polynesian ancestors from their possessions. Some of the expelled fled to the coasts of New Guinea; of these, the present Motuans are examples; others, and the greater quantity, seem to have passed northwards, then eastwards, past the north coast of New Guinea and onwards to Samoa, avoiding the Papuak and Fijian islands, which were occupied by the original blacks in force, and in such numbers and so fiercely as to prevent any settlement of invaders. From Samoa, as an original seat, the Polynesians have spread into all the other islands, absorbing or, in some cases, amalgamating with the native blacks. On my theory, the Mongolians who came to Indonesia adopted mostly the language of the conquered Caucasians (just as the Japanese are now adopting English), and when fresh bands of Mongolians arrived and enabled them to master all the islands, they all continued to speak that dialect which is now called the Malay, and is the lingua franca of the East.

On this theory, there must be a close connexion between the Polynesian and the Malayan languages, but not because the Polynesian is taken from the Malay. The process in my opinion was quite the - 254 reverse; they both came from the same stock, and the Malayan is Polynesian as to its origin. And, just as the Maldivean is evidently a mixture both of the Aryan Pâli language of India and of the speech of the Dravida blacks of the Dekkan, so the languages of the Melanesian region and of Samoa and New Zealand show a resemblance in their vocabularies, being all, more or less, the product of a similar union, and sprung in the distant past from the same original sources in India.

There are other grounds, not linguistic, on which I could argue this question, but this paper is already too long.

(To be continued.)

ABBREVIATIONS FOR DIALECTS AND LANGUAGES.

An., Aneityumese.	Mel., Melanesian.
Aust., Australian.	Mlk., Malekulan.
Dr., Dravidian.	N.-B., New Britain.
Eb., Ebudan.	N.-G., New Guinea.
Ef., Efate.	N.-H., New Hebrides.
En., English.	P., Pâli of India.
Er., Eromangan.	Poly., Polynesian.
Fi., Fijian.	S., Santo.
Fr., French.	Sa., Samoan.
Lat., Latin.	Sk., Sanskrit.
Loy., Loyalty Islands.	T., Tanna.
M., Motuan.	To., Islands in Torres Straits.
Ma., Maori.	Tuk., Tukiok, i.e., Duke of York Island.
Mal., Malay.	T.-S., Torres Straits.
Mald., Maldivean.

GEOGRAPHICAL.

Dravida or Dravidians are the black non-Aryan races of Southern India; they have twelve tribal dialects, but the chief of these is the Tamil of the Madras coast.

Ebudan (adj.), belonging to the New Hebrides; Ebudans, the people of the New Hebrides. I have formed this name from Lat. Ebudes, the Scottish Hebrides, as being convenient to use. The islands of the New Hebrides which are referred to in this paper are Ambrym, Aneityum, Efate, Epi, Eromanga, Maewo, Malekula, Santo, Tanna, no one of which has a Polynesian dialect.

Indonesia, a convenient name for the Malay Archipelago.

Loyalty Islands, the islands to the east of New Caledonia (Uvéa, Lifu, Maré, &c.), including the Isle of Pines.

Maithili, a dialect spoken by a mixed people in Northern Behar, Province of Bengal.

Melanesians. I use this word in a comprehensive sense to mean all the blacks in Oceania, except the Australians.

Motu, a district on the south-east coast of British New Guinea.

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Papuan. I apply this to the people of New Guinea alone.

Papuak. I have made this adjective from Papua, to describe all the islanders from New Guinea eastward towards Fiji and north of the New Hebrides; it includes New Britain, New Ireland, Duke of York Island, Solomon Islands, Banks' Islands, &c., but not Fiji.

Polynesian. I apply this term to the brown Polynesians only.

Tukiok. This is the native pronunciation of Duke of York (island), a small island in the strait between New Britain and New Ireland. As there is another Duke of York Island in the Pacific, Tukiok is convenient to mean the language and people of this one.

Torresians, the people who occupy the small islands in Torres, Straits, between Australia and New Guinea. They are true Papuans.

***************

THE MALAYO-POLYNESIAN THEORY.

By John Fraser, LL.D., Sydney.

II.

(Continued from page 254, December, 1895.)

SINCE my previous paper on this subject was written I have found additional evidence in favour of my contention that the brown Polynesians are in no sense Malays.

The evidence is this: The spirit of commercial enterprise which visited Western Europe in the end of the sixteenth century led a Frenchman named François Pyrard with some others to equip two vessels for a voyage to the East Indies, to get a share of the wealth there. They left St. Malo (Normandy) in 1601, and in the following year the “Corbin,” of which Pyrard was captain, was wrecked on the Maldives, and he was detained a prisoner there for five years. As a captive he had to work for and among the people, and so he learned their language; but at last a marauding force came from Bengal and he was rescued. After varied services in India he returned to France and published an account of his adventures in 1611. In that book he says, “As to the origin of the Maldiveans, the natives hold that the Maldives were formerly peopled by the Cingala (so the inhabitants of Ceylan are named). They say that the Maldives began to be inhabited about 400 years ago [that is, about the year 1200 A.D.], and that the first who came and peopled them were the Cingalles of the the island of Ceylan, which is not far distant.” Although his statement that the Singhalese were the first occupants of the Maldives is doubtless correct, yet they must have been in the islands long before the date he mentions; for the fragments of the writings of Pappus of Alexandria (circa A.D. 390) and the travels of the Chinese pilgrim Fah-Hian (circa A.D. 400) speak of a multitude of small islands there as dependent on Ceylon, and a Persian traveller in the 9th century says that they had a brisk trade in his time. We may therefore safely conclude that - 93 the Singhalese had colonized the Maldives about the beginning of the Christian era, for at that period Ceylon was a flourishing and powerful kingdom.

As to the speech of the Maldiveans, Pyrard says, “There are two languages in use: the first is that peculiar to the Maldives, which is a very full one; the second is Arabic, which is much cultivated, and is learnt by them as Latin is with us; it is also used in their daily prayers.” The Maldiveans had become Mohammedans before his time, and so the Arabic mentioned here is not the language of daily life, but of religion and law, and as such cannot have influenced the vernacular of the people.

Now, this Pyrard, in his book, gives a vocabulary of the Maldive language such as he knew it nearly 300 years ago. This vocabulary proves that the language has changed very little in all these years and that it is and has been strongly Indo-Aryan. I purpose now to examine some of Pyrard's vocables as they affect the Malayo-Polynesian theory. For brevity I use numbers in this way: (1) means Pyrard's words with the spelling modernized; (2) is Christopher's vocabulary, from which I took my examples formerly; (3) is modern Singhalese; (4) is Pâli; and (5) is the Sanskrit of our dictionaries.

‘Sin,’ i.e., wickedness. (1) papa; (2) fāfu; (3) pāpa; (4) papo, ‘bad, evil’; (5) pāpa, ‘wicked.’ The Malay word pāpa is the same as this, but later in time, for it has the secondary and ethical meaning of ‘poor, indigent,’ while the Samoan Fafā, ‘the abode of the wicked, Hades,’ retains the original sense of wickedness. I do not know whether the Baki (New Hebrides) word mboba, ‘bad,’ is a simple word or a compound from mbo, ‘good’; but, if simple, it may be connected with papa. Popa-rua, ‘bad’ (used on Epi), is cognate, and uba (for fuba or faba), ‘bad,’ of the Torres Straits islands is the same word. Now, I ask how can the Polynesian Fafā and the Melanesian popa and uba come from the Malay pāpa, ‘poor’? Is poverty synonymous with wickedness? Can the true Papuans of Torres Straits have borrowed a Malay word to enable them to express so fundamental an idea as ‘bad, wicked’? Is it not far more likely that these words are directly connected with the Indian pāpa, ‘wicked’?

‘Heavens.’ (1) udu; (2) udu; (3) udā; (4) uda-kam, ‘water’; (5) uda-m, ‘water.’ I take this Singhalese word to mean the ‘cloud-land’ of the sky from which the rain comes, and, if so, it is cognate to the Greek ΰδωρ and the Latin unda. The Malay for ‘rain’ is ujan, evidently from uda; the Fijian is utha, ‘rain’; and the Samoan is ua, ‘rain’—which come direct from uda and not from ujan. The Eromangan uyu, ‘water,’ is also the same word, and so is usa, ‘rain,’ used all through the New Hebrides. It is somewhat singular that the Motu natives say for ‘rain’ not uda, but medu, with which compare the old Phrygio-Macedonian word bedu, ‘water’ (see Curtius, s.v.), and the Latin mad-i-dus, ‘moist, wet.’

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‘Death.’ (1) mare; (2) —; (3) marana; (4) maranam; (5) mri (mar), ‘to die.’ The Malay is māti, ‘to die,’ and that is for the Pâli mīyati (marti), ‘to die,’ of which the infinitive in ti is a form peculiar to the Pâli, and this form the Malay has copied. And the same formative ti prevails almost everywhere throughout both Melanesia and Polynesia, and yet that form is not Malayan but Indian. Notwithstanding that the form in r is nowhere found in Malay, yet it comes up in the Tukiok wirua, ‘to die,’ and the Torresian para, ‘to die.’ In the copious vocabularies which Wallace gives in his “Malay Archipelago,” the only region where this r appears is the south-east of the island of Ceram, close to the coast of New Guinea, a region where the Papuan element prevails. Does all that not prove that some of the earliest populations of the islands have a connection with India quite independently of the Malays?1

‘Sickness.’ (1) bali; (2) bali. This is connected with the root of mare, ‘death’; but there is no trace of the word in Malay, where ‘sick’ is sakit. And yet in Maori and Samoan maki, ma'i, is ‘sick,’ and the Ebudan has (b)ari, ‘sick, ill’ (see also No. 26, supra). Here again there is an intimate connection with India, but not through Malaydom.

‘Month.’ (1) mas; (2) mas; (3) mase; (4) maso. The only word for ‘moon,’ ‘month,’ in Malay is bulan; and yet both masi-na and vula are in common use in Melanesia and Polynesia.

‘Tree.’ (1) gats; (2) gas; (3) gas. The only thing like this in Malay is kayu, ‘wood-fuel,’ but the New Hebrides have kasu, kau, gai, Fiji has kathu, and Samoa la'au, ‘tree.’ The Sanskrit root is kash-tha, ‘wood-fuel.’

‘Rat.’ (1) mida; (2) mīyā. Here, I think, I have a very strong corroboration of my argument; for among the Motu of New Guinea, who, in many respects, are akin to the brown Polynesians, the word for ‘rat’ is bita, exactly the same word as Pyrard's mida.

‘Pig.’ (1) ūr; (2) ūru; (3) ūra. Here is another proof of some weight too. The Malay for ‘pig’ is ba-bi, from the Sanskrit root pa, ‘fat’; but the Malay has -bi as a formative, and has not the Maldive form in ra; and yet in Motu, Tukiok, and New Britain I find boro-ma, boroi, boro for ‘pig,’ which are formed quite independently of ba-bi. Nearly all the Melanesian and Polynesian words are also independent of babi.

‘Coco-nut’ (the tree). (1) rul; (2) ru; (3) ruka; but the fruit is (1) caré; (2) karhi. This again is another proof, for Eromanga and Banks' Islands (both Melanesian) say noki (= ru, ruka) for ‘coco-nut,’ and the Ebudan kula, 'ol, on Ambrym and Malekula may be for kura, ruka, by metathesis; while the Maldive word caré has the Motu garu to correspond with it. Perhaps the word noki is for nuki, which would - 95 give nui by elision, whence, by metathesis, niu, the common name for a ‘coco-nut’ everywhere. Words which the islanders use so frequently as 'coco-nut' are very subject to decay and displacement of sound.

‘Head.’ (1) bul; (2) bō. In Malaydom the nearest approach to this word is found among the true Papuan savages of the island of Mysol, who say mul-ud for ‘head’; the brown Papuans of Ceram and the neighbourhood say aluda and ulu. The common Malay words are kapāla and ūlū; the Samoan is ulu; Melauesian Fiji and New Britain say ulu and ulu-na. Now, if I were to compare the Malay ulu and the Samoan ulu alone, I might see something to favour the Malayo-Polynesian theory; but against that I set the fact that the Papuans of Mysol have the word mulud, which is certainly anterior to ulu, and the Melanesians of New Britain, who have certainly not been influenced by Malays, say ulu. I am constrained, therefore, to believe that the Malay is not the parent of the Polynesian words, but that, on the contrary, they have all come from one common source. The Maldive bul is older than the Malay ulu, and the Pâli mud-dha is older than bul, mul; for this mud easily changes into mul, while mul cannot change into mud. The Pâli mud-dha means ‘head, top, summit.’ In Uvea, of the Loyalty Islands, very far removed from Malay influences, ‘head’ is bo, and that corresponds with the Maldive bo.

‘Eye.’ (1) lolo; (2) lō. The Malay word for ‘eye’ is mata, and ‘to see’ is līat. There is nothing nearer to lolo than that. Efate and Santo have lo, loh, leo, ‘to see’ (see No. 29 of my previous paper). The Sanskrit equivalents are laksh, lok, ‘to see’; lochana, ‘eye.’ The Pâli is o-lok-ati, ‘to see.’

‘Blood.’ (1) le; (2) lē; (3) lē. This is the Sanskrit root ra, as in rakta, ‘red,’ ‘blood.’ The Malay for ‘blood’ is dārah, and for ‘red’ mērah. The Samoan for ‘blood’ is toto. The Melanesian Ebudans have nda, ra, and re, which are a nearer approach to the Maldivean and to the Sanskrit root than to the Malay.

‘Foot.’ (1) pae; (2) fiyolu; (3) paya. The root here is the Aryan ba, ‘to go,’ as in the Greek βαίοω. The Malay for ‘foot’ is kaki, which is an Oceanic word, for it re-appears in the Papuak kaki-na. But, independent of the Malay and cognate to the Maldivean, are the Samoan vae and the Motu ae.

‘House.’ (1) gué; (2) gē. (3) gē. ‘House’ in Malay is rumah, which is also Oceanic. But in Tukiok and New Britain ‘home’ is gabu-na, kuba-na, and gunan, and on Efate kopu is ‘house.’ These bring us nearer to the Aryan root gam, gab, gav, gau, ‘to cover,’ from which all these words come. The Malay rumah is for lumah; the root is still gam, which becomes lam, lum. For lum some Ebudans say yim, yeom.

‘Four.’ (1) ataret; (2) —; (3) hatara. I do not know if anyone has yet given a satisfactory derivation of the Polynesian numeral fa, ‘four.’ In some parts of the Indonesian Archipelago it is - 96 ampat, apat, ‘four’; but the Malays prefer to use kawan for ‘four.’ The Malagasy e-fat(r)a shows that the earlier form was pat or fat. Now, the the earliest Indian form seems to have been katvar, now chatur in Sanskrit books. It is somewhat odd that the primitive g or k has been subjected in Aryan speech to almost all the changes which it is possible for such a consonant to undergo—it has become a palatal, a dental, a labial, a breathing, and finally has disappeared altogether; so it has passed from the throat gradually outwards to the lips and then vanished; thus: the root being kat-var, Sanskrit is chat-ur; Greek tett-ares; Cymric ped-war; Gothic fid-vor; English four; Maldivean hat-ara; Indonesian apat, pat, pa, fa, ha, aa; Polynesian fa, wha, aa, a. The Sanskrit pancha, ‘five,’ has had a similar experience, although in a less degree, for its cognate forms are Greek pente; Latin quinque; Irish cúig; German fünf; English five.

Now, the initial aspirate of the Singhalese hat-ara implies the previous existence of a labial p or f; we see labial in the Homeric πίσυρες, the Umbrian pet-ur, the Oscan pet-ora, and the Cymric ped-war. As these examples establish the possibility of an antecedent pat- in Pâli to give the Singhalese hat-ara, I need not hesitate to say that the Indonesian pat and the Polynesian (fat) fa have come from India. So far, these examples.

There is another aspect of my theme which I may be permitted to discuss here with some minuteness. It is well known that the names for domestic relationships are persistent in the same family of languages. The root-words pa or da and ma to mean ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ seem to belong to all languages, and therefore to have been part of the primitive speech of all mankind; but as soon as we pass from them to the ideas of ‘brother,’ ‘sister,’ ‘uncle,’ ‘cousin,’ the Aryans diverge from the Shemites, and the Turanians differ from all others, and even among themselves, as might be expected. The Indo-European word ‘brother,’ for instance, is spread from the Indian Seas to Ultima Thule, but the Hebrew says (âch) and the Turk says gardash for ‘brother.’ Now, the existence of the word ‘brother,’ letter for letter, in all the Aryan nations, and of many other identical words, led to the grouping of the speech of these nations as an Indo-European family of languages. For it is impossible to suppose that so many nations, if they were isolated in their origin and had always remained apart from each other, could have all invented the same word to express the idea of ‘brother.’ But if we assume that at one time they were all in the same fold, and had then one common stock of words, it is easy to see how, when they became separate nationalities, the word ‘brother’ was still used by all.

Now, to bring this view closer to my subject, I refer to the first Maldive word that I quoted in my last paper—koku, ‘a younger brother,’ Malay kākak, ‘any brother older than the speaker, but not the eldest,’ who is abang; consequently he is the younger brother of the eldest, and the younger brother of the family when it has only two - 97 sons. To the younger brothers any kākak is an elder brother. Hence this root-word, throughout Aryan India and elsewhere, does mean ‘an elder brother,’ and sometimes ‘an uncle.’ To illustrate the use which I wish to make of this word in my argument, I now write a list of the regions to which this root-word has gone, and of the forms which it has assumed there:—

Aryan Regions:—

• 1. Panjabi and Sindhi—kāka, ‘an elder brother.’
• 2. Marathi and Hindi—kaka, ‘a paternal uncle.’
• 3. Hindustani—chāchā, ‘a paternal, but khāl, ‘a maternal uncle.’
• 4. Modern Persian—kukal-tash, ‘a foster brother’; khalu, a maternal uncle.’ Persian (teste Pictet2—kâkû, kâkûyah, ‘a maternal uncle.’
• 5. Greek—κάσις, ‘a brother or sister’; κασι-γνητος, ‘a brother, a sister, a blood relation’; γάλως ‘a husband's sister’; κού-αι (teste Hesychius), ‘grandfathers and ancestors.’ Perhaps here also should come the Latin avus (for kavus), ‘a grandfather,’ and the English gaffer, gammer.

Indonesian Regions:—

• 6. Dairi3mdash;káka, ‘an elder brother.’
• 7. Kawi4mdash;káka, ‘an elder brother.’
• 8. Javanese—kakany, ‘an elder brother.’
• 9. Malay—kakak, ‘an elder brother.’

Melanesian Regions:—

• 10. Motu5mdash;kakana, ‘an elder brother.’
• 11. New Guinea6mdash;'a'ana and 6tua-hana, ‘an elder brother.’
• 12. Fiji—7tua-ka, ‘an elder brother or sister.’
• 13. Torres Straits (islands in)—8kai-mer, ‘a man's brother, a woman's sister’; kai-meg, ‘a cousin, a follower, a comrade’; kai-ed, ‘a grandfather, an ancestor’; 9kui-kui-nga, 10toki-up, ‘a man's elder brother.’
• 14. Ebudan.—Santo— 11toga-na, ‘his eldest brother.’
• 15. Malo—12 soco-ti, ‘a brother's sister, a sister's brother.’
• 16. Epi—ko, ‘a brother's sister, a sister's brother.’
• 17. Efate—13yore, ‘a cousin’; gore-na, ‘a sister's brother, a brother's sister.’
• 18. Eromanga—11 sokau, ‘a brother.’
• 19. Futuna—14kave, ‘a cousin’; 15soa, ‘a sister's sister, a brother's brother.’

Polynesian Regions:—

• 20. Samoa—6tua-gane, ‘a woman's brother’; tua-(k)a, ‘a man's brother, a woman's sister’; 'a'a (for kaka), ‘family relations.’
- 98
• 21. Maori—6 tua-kana, ‘an elder brother of a male, an elder sister of a female’; matua-keke, ‘an uncle’; tu-ngane, ‘a woman's brother.’

In New Britain (a Melanesian region) ka(k)aga is ‘twins,’ and in the adjacent Duke of York Island kai is ‘a couple.’ In New Britain also turā-na is ‘a brother,’ but not used of a woman's brother: also applied to ‘male first cousins of the mother's family,’ and said of ‘things which resemble one another.’ I have no doubt that this word tura is the same as the second part of the Sanskrit sva-çuras, ‘a brother-in-law,’ of the origin of which Sanskrit etymologists can give no account. The -çuras is for kura-s, and the sva is Sanskrit for ‘self, one's own, a kinsman.’ This Sanskrit word sva, if written sua, may be tua, the prefix of relationship, as above.

I think that the table of cognates to kaka, which I have collected here, even if taken alone, would justify me in rejecting the Malayo-Polynesian theory; for it is evident from that table that the Polynesian words which appear to be Malayan have really come from a source far more remote in time than the Malay can pretend to be. The Malay found them in the Indian Archipelago and adapted them to his own use; and the ancestors of the present Polynesian race got them there too, long before him; for it is quite certain that Hinduism, and Buddhism with its Pâli dialect, prevailed in Indonesia long before the Malay came there. Hinduism existed in Java up to 400 years ago, and the island of Bali still has much of the Hindu ceremonial. Indian languages were established in these islands perhaps 2000 years ago. If the ancestors of the brown Polynesians were then in Indonesia, need we wonder if we find Indian words in the present language of the South Seas? And is it not foolish to say that these words came from the Malays, who are recent arrivals in Indonesia?

I believe that the original root of all the words of relationship which I have now quoted is the Aryan preposition-prefix ka, ‘with, together with’; Latin cum; Greek άμ-α; Sanskrit sa, sam (where s stands for an older k). The words thus denote primarily the brothers and sisters in a family who come closest by birth, and are most ‘together’ in their youth. In that sense New Britain has ka(k)ā-ga, ‘twins,’ and Tukiok has kai, ‘a couple.’ The Greek κά-σι-ς also comes near to the root; and here Polynesia throws some light on the Greek language, for Curtius and other Greek etymologists are puzzled to find the origin of κάσις. The Papuan islands in Torres Straits also come near the root in kai-meg, ‘a cousin, a comrade,’ and the Ebudans in ko, kave. The Tongan kui, ‘grand-parents,’ and the Paumotan kui, ‘an ancestor,’ seem also to belong to this.; cf. Torresian and Greek.

Therefore, if a supporter of the Malayo-Polynesian theory were to come in here and tell me that he can produce a clear case of borrowing—for the Malay has kāka-k, ‘an elder brother’ (where the final k is a formative); that at Motu this word is kaka-na, and elsewhere on the - 99 coast of New Guinea it is 'a'ana, tua-hana; that in Maori tua-kana is ‘the elder brother of a male, the elder sister of a female,’ and matua-keke (i.e., 'a full-grown kaka) is ‘an uncle’; that in Samoan tua-gane is ‘a woman's brother’—I should at once reply that, although kakana and hana and kana and keke and gane are all the same word, it does not follow that they came from the Malay, for the Malay itself is a borrower from far earlier forms of the same word in India. A glance at the list I have given above shows how common that word is in India. I observe also that in the Kawi, the ancient language of Java—a language much older than the Malayan—‘an elder brother’ is káka, and in modern Javanese kakang. Is it not possible that instead of the Malayan being the origin of the Polynesian dialects, the Malay himself has taken up that Java word? for Malays have always been ready to adopt the manners of others.

My discussion of the Malayo-Polynesian theory has hitherto centred on the correspondence between Malayan and Polynesian words merely, for it was on this ground alone that K. Wm. von Humboldt first advanced that theory, and with the same arguments others have since maintained it. But it is clear to me, and I hope to my readers also, that these arguments can be proved to be fallacious. Francis Bopp and others were of that opinion long ago, and asserted that many of these resemblances came from India, but through the Malays. On the contrary, I assert that these words did not come through the Malays, and that the Malays have nothing whatever to do with the formation either of the physical frame of the brown Polynesians or the structure of their language; that the Malays are the borrowers, and that, on their first landing in the Indonesian islands, they found the ancestors of these Polynesians there, and gradually adopted their language. Similar also, in my opinion, was the experience of these ancestors themselves, when they first came into the islands of the Archipelago; for the blacks were there before them, and the fair-skinned invaders amalgamated with the blacks to some extent, especially on the coasts (as has subsequently taken place in New Guinea), and adopted many of the words of these Melanesian aborigines. The whole question therefore arranges itself to my mind thus: The ancestors of the present Melanesian blacks, coming originally from India, probably through the Eastern Peninsula, were the first inhabitants of Indonesia and the other islands far eastward into the Pacific. Their language was tolerably primitive, but many of their words still exist in their original or in cognate forms in India, especially in the vernacular dialects there. These words are less traceable in Further India, because of the many storm-waves of population which have since swept over that peninsula. In course of time, fairer tribes, like the present Khmers of Cambodia, were driven into Indonesia by some of these waves; finding the Melanesians there, they occupied the coasts, and mixing with the black natives formed a composite people and a composite language. This - 100 mixture produced a brown race, who afterwards passed into Eastern Polynesia, and made a Polynesian language, which necessarily, from these events, must contain words akin to the present Melanesian dialects; and then, long after this mixture had established itself in Indonesia, a Mongolian race (the present Malays) came into these islands, drove multitudes of the brown people away to seek rest in islands farther afield, and mixing with those that remained formed the present Malay race and language. Thus it is that, in my view, the correspondences have arisen between the words of the Malay speech and the Polynesian, and of both, in a less degree, with the Melanesian.

Apart from the standpoint of language, this question could be argued by comparing the grammatical structure of these languages, and by examining the customs, traditions, and mythology of the peoples. For both of these aspects of the question there is material to work on, but probably my readers have had enough of this Malayo-Polynesian theory at present; so I leave the other arguments untouched.

Illustration

1  For ‘die,’ see No. 26 of my previous article.

2  —Pictet, in his Les Origines Indo-Européennes, § 297, gives these words as Persian, but I have been unable to verify them.

3  —Dairi is a dialect of the Batak of Sumatra.

4  —Kawi is the ancient language of Java.

5  —The Motu of Port Moresby is the best known dialect on the south coast of British New Guinea.

6  —These are dialects on the same coast as the Motuan.

7  —Tua is a well-known prefixed word to express relationship.

8  —Kai is for kaki.

9  —Kui is for kuki.

10  —Toki for koki; for the interchange of k for t is very common in Polynesian dialects.

11  —Toga for koka (t for k).

12  —Soco for koko. In Sanskrit s for ç is common as a substitute for k.

13  —Go-re, that is, ko, with the suffix -re; but perhaps this word is connected with the New Britain turā-na.

14  —Ka-ve. I have written this word as I found it, but I imagine it should be ka-re, from the Samoan ka; for the language of this Ebudan Island is Polynesian.

15  —Soa in Samoan is ‘a companion.’

*************

The Journal of the Polynesian Society.

VOL. VII. 1898.

THE MALAYO—POLYNESIAN THEORY.

III.

By John Fraser, LL.D., Sydney.

(Continued from page 100, Vol. V., June, 1896.)

This Question is here viewed from an Australian standpoint.

Explanatory Note.—I resume this subject because I have unexpectedly come across some Australian facts which throw a sidelight on it, and because it is evident from an article in the last number of this Journal (page 153), that the drift of my argument is not yet understood. The words to which I refer are: “That the continent of India, and not the Malay Archipelago, was the original seat of the Polynesian race is not a new theory. It has been maintained for many years by several of the missionaries familiar with the people. Malayo-Polynesian has been retained as a distinctive name without endorsing the old exploded idea.” On the contrary, I have all along argued (1) that the Polynesian, both brown and black, did come from what is now the Malay Archipelago; and (2) that the term Malayo-Polynesian is still used by missionaries and others, from the belief that the brown Polynesians are in some way Malays. For instance, in ‘The Martyrs of Polynesia,’ by the Rev. A. W. Murray, of the London Missionary Society (London, 1885), at page 114, I find these words, “The natives of Aneiteum are rather an inferior race; the vast majority of them are Papuan, but we found individuals who were evidently allied to the Malay races in Eastern Polynesia.” A recent missionary lexicographer says: “The Samoans must have migrated before the Malay became corrupted. It is now probably nearer to the old Malay than the language at present spoken by them.” So also a recent Missionary book (London, 1892) says, “The woman was a Malay, as all the Aniwans were.”

Scientists have also done much to spread the Malayo-Polynesian theory, chiefly Wilhelm von Humboldt, who, on the very first page of his great work (Über die Kawi Sprache auf der Insel Java), says, “Under this name—the Malayan race—I include the inhabitants of all the islands of the great Southern Ocean”; and John Fred. Blumenbach, who is regarded as one of the founders of anthropology, in his - 2 work (De varietate nativa generis humani) enters as ‘Malayan’ two Maori and one Tahitian skull which he had. In short, the idea on which the term ‘Malayo-Polynesian’ is based is by no means dead. And even those who do not hold that theory have shown nothing better to put in its place; hence the importance of the present discussion.

The view which I take is a “new theory” so far as I am concerned, for I have never seen it stated by any other. It is shortly this: Whereas others maintain that a conspicuous portion of the Polynesian language has come from the Malays, I hold that these words were Polynesian before they became Malayan; that is, that the Malays, when they came into the Indian Archipelago, found a Polynesian language there from which they borrowed largely. And further, I hold that in Indonesia the first dwellers were of the Melanesian stock, that the ancestry of the present Polynesians was grafted on that, and that the Malays are the last and latest settlement there. Thus I account for the well-known fact that the ground-work of the purely Melanesian languages shows many root-words in common with the languages both of the brown Polynesians and the Malays. Others say that these words come through the Malays; I say that the Malays were the borrowers. “The truth,—the more it's shook, it shines,” and every question as to the origin of our Polynesians and their speech ought to be worthy of a place in your Journal.

IN my last paper on this subject I said: “If a supporter of the Malayo-Polynesian theory were to come in here and tell me that he can produce a clear case of borrowing; for the Malay has kāka-k, ‘an elder brother’ (where the final k is a formative); that at Motu this word is kaka-na, and that elsewhere on the coast of New Guinea it is 'a'ana, tua-hana; that in Maori tua-kana is ‘the elder brother of a male,’ ‘the elder sister of a female,’ and matua-keke (i.e., ‘a full-grown kaka') is ‘an uncle’; that in Samoan tua-gane is ‘a woman's brother’—I should at once reply that, although kakana, and hana, and kana, and keke, and -gane are all the same word, it does not follow that they came from the Malay language, for the Malay itself is a borrower from far earlier forms which came originally from India.”

In support of my contention that the Malay is a borrower I quoted several instances of the use of that word in India, as Panjabi kāka, ‘an elder brother’; Sindhi kāka, ‘an elder brother’; Marathi and Hindi kaka, ‘a paternal uncle’; Hindustani, chāchā, ‘a paternal uncle’; khāl, ‘a maternal uncle.’ To these examples, I might have added the Hindustani kākā, ‘an elder brother’; kaki, ‘a maternal aunt’; chacherā (adj), ‘belonging to a paternal uncle’; hence chachera bhai, ‘a male cousin.’ Now, it is impossible to deny that these are genuine Indian words, and earlier than the Malay; in fact, Forbes's Hindustani Dictionary marks kaka and kaki as taken from the aboriginal languages of India. The Malay, therefore, got them from India, and is the borrower. Or, rather, according to my theory, they came into Indonesia long before the Malays settled there; they belonged to the first inhabitants of these parts—the ancestors of the - 3 present Melanesians and Polynesians, and with them the words in question passed into Oceania; at a later time the Malays came into Indonesia; finding the words there, they adopted them and now use them as their own—all which will be unfolded as I now go on with this discussion.

The Dictionary's statement that these words of relationship are aboriginal in India is supported by the fact that away up among the Himalayas, where many of the aborig inal blacks of India found refuge after the Aryan invasion, the Nepalese Vayu people speak of kuku, ‘a maternal uncle,’ kiki, ‘a grandfather,’ and chacha, ‘a grandson’; while the Chitrali dialect in the Hindu Kush says kai, ‘a sister, a cousin’; and the Nager dialect, used to the north of Gilgit in the same quarter, says khakin,1 ‘a daughter-in-law’; the Kolarians also, an aboriginal race in east-central India, say kako, ‘an elder brother’; kaki, ‘an elder sister’; kankar, ‘a mother-in-law.’ Therefore, since these words belong to the speech of the black races who first occupied India before the Aryans came in, and since the same terms in the same sense are used by the present inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago, it seems to me clear that Indonesia was first peopled by an influx of a portion of those black races from the mainland, coming probably through Further India, where the black Samangs are still relics of their presence; then, I infer that, in the course of time, a fairer race, like the Khmêrs of Cambodia, settled in Indonesia among the blacks and took up part of their language; and further on the Malays probably did likewise; for it is certain that the Malays came in much later. Thus the sequence of population in Indonesia would be—(1) blacks from India and Further India; (2) a fairer race which, partly amalgamating with the blacks, produced the ancestors of the present brown Polynesians; (3) the Malays, a Mongolian race, take possession and adopt much of the language and customs of their predecessors.

The Chitrali word kai, ‘a sister, a cousin,’ further supports my arguments; for I compare it with words used by the true Papuans of Torres' Straits, of whose black origin there can be no dispute—kai-mer, ‘a man's brother,’ ‘a woman's sister’; kai-meg, ‘a cousin, a follower, a comrade’; kai-ed, ‘a grandfather, an ancestor’; to these add ko, which, in Epi, an island of the New Hebrides, means ‘a brother's sister,’ ‘a sister's brother’; in Fiji, ka-sa, ‘a companion,’ and kei, kai, ‘with,’ kai, ‘an inhabitant or native of a place,’ with which compare the Australian suffix -kal in the same sense.

But what will the supporters of the Malayo-Polynesian theory say - 4 when I now tell them that the Malay word kāka-k, ‘an elder brother,’ and cognate forms are common words of relationship throughout the continent of Australia? Will they say that our natives, who are a very ancient race, borrowed these words from the Malays, who are quite modern in their origin? Or, will they say that our blackfellows also, as well as the brown Polynesians, are Malays, because they have in their speech a few words which the Malays also have? No; the true explanation is that their first home was in Asia, and that with the spread of races from that central source these words of relationship have gone into all parts of Oceania.

And the facts which I am now about to quote touch the theory, held by some, that our native blackfellows are a separate creation, and have no ethnic relationship to the rest of mankind. If that were so, how does it come about that in all parts of Australia words of relationship are found, evidently indigenous, and yet quite as evidently connected with similar words of relationship in India? Have they sprung up both here and there by spontaneous generation, and so much alike? And yet, our blacks cannot have had contact with India for more than two thousand years past. It must be that the ancestors of our aborigines were once in India, where, as I have stated, these words belong to the earliest native races, and these are known to be physically akin to our blacks; indeed, from cranial and skeletal considerations alone, the late Professor Huxley put the Dravidian black races of southern India and the Australians in one and the same class, which he called the Australoid.

Now for the proof; I first go to Lake Eyre, in the very heart of the Australian continent—certainly far enough removed from Malaydom, to prevent any suspicion of borrowing. Among the tribes clustering around that lake one of the chief is the Diyéri, which, on the testimony of Mr. Howitt, who knows them well, I am quite safe in declaring to be truly Australian. For ‘a mother's brother’ they say kaka,2 with which compare the Vayu kuku, ‘a maternal uncle’; the Hindustani kākā, ‘an elder brother,’ kaki, ‘a maternal aunt’; Marathi kaka, ‘a paternal uncle,’ as well as other words already quoted. The Diyéri also say kaku to mean ‘an elder sister,’ and under this they include ‘a father's brother's daughter’ and ‘a mother's sister's daughter,’ but with them kami is ‘a father's sister's son,’ and when it is a female that uses the word, kanini is ‘a daughter's son’ or ‘a sister's daughter's son’; the Diyéri further say kareti for ‘a wife's brother,’ and (when a male speaks) ‘a sister's husband,’ while kamari is ‘a husband's sister’ and (a female speaking) ‘a brother's wife.’ In the same region of Australia and around Mt. Howitt, on the upper - 5 Barcoo River, is a tribe called the Kunandaburi; they say karugaja to mean ‘a daughter's husband’ (a female speaking), and karaugi, ‘an elder sister,’ in the same wide sense as the Diyéri term kaku. The Theddora tribe on Lake Omeo, in eastern Victoria, say kaki for the Diyéri kaku, and kamutch for kami. On the south-east coast of New South Wales is a tribe which seems to have no collective name for itself, but to which I have elsewhere given the name of Murring-jari, from murring, their word for ‘men.’ They use kabo to mean ‘a wife's brother,’ or 3 (m) ‘a sister's husband,’ and karembari, ‘a husband's sister,’ (f) ‘a brother's wife.’ For kabo the Chepara tribe, on the Tweed River between Queensland and New South Wales, say kabu-kări; for ‘sister's son’ (m) they say kanie, and for (f) ‘son's wife,’ (f) ‘husband's mother,’ kamingŭn. On the lower Murray River are the Watu-watu, who say tati (for kati), ‘younger brother,’ and also the Wonghi tribe who put kaka for ‘elder brother or sister,’ and kati, ‘younger brother or sister’; at Wentworth, near the junction of the Murray and the Darling Rivers, kayūga. is ‘an elder brother.’ In Victoria, kaki is ‘a mother's sister’ (Gournditch tribe in the west), and kakai is ‘father's sister's son’ (Woey-worung tribe, Melbourne). The Ngarego tribe, in eastern Victoria and the south of New South Wales, has kaping to mean ‘a mother's mother’ or ‘a mother's mother's sister.4

Other examples in Australia also which I have collected have still the same root syllable ka as in India, but my authorities do not distinguish the exact relationship; that is, they say ‘uncle,’ but do not say whether it is a maternal or a paternal uncle that is meant. Thus, in West Australia we have kangan, ‘uncle’; at Yancannia, on the middle Darling River, kakuja ‘cousin,’ (with which compare the Diyéri kaku), in the west of Victoria chachee is ‘sister,’ and kukur minjer is said to mean ‘first great-great-grandfather’; on the Manning River, on the east coast of New South Wales, kandu is ‘uncle,’ and kalang is ‘husband’; the Wiradjari at Wellington, in the heart of New South Wales, say kagang ‘brother,’ and north of them the Wailwun say kaka, ‘brother,’ kati, ‘sister,’ kani, ‘uncle’; on the Richmond River, in the north-east of New South Wales, kagang is ‘first-born brother,’ and kang is ‘uncle’; kan is ‘cousin’ on the Macleay River.

Anyone who will take the trouble to look through the vocabularies in Curr's volumes on ‘An Australian Race,’ will find numerous other examples of the same words from Queensland and all the colonies. In fact, in 120 localities along all the coasts and throughout the - 6 interior of this continent, these vocabularies show from 40 to 50 varieties of words of relationship, all formed from the same root ka.

Here let us for a moment examine the field over which we have passed. We find the monosyllable ka spread over the whole field. Now, we know that human speech is founded on monosyllables, for they lie at the base of all languages, and language grows by reduplicating the monosyllable or by adding on other syllables to it. In this field the growth of the root word ka has not been polysynthetic, as in the American languages, but entirely terminational, and the endings added on to ka show little variety in the Indian languages, but much more variety in Australia and Melanesia. And it is further noticeable that the Melanesian languages of Fiji, Epi, Duke of York Island, and the Papuan Islands in Torres' Straits, preserve that root in its simplest form, ka or kai, and that on the mainland Chitral alone, in the Hindu Kush, has the form kai. I observe also that the Fiji and Tukiok languages alone preserve what I conceive to be the bare original meaning of this syllable, which is ‘with,’ ‘a couple’; and from this idea Fiji gets ka-sa, ‘a companion,’ Tukiok ka-tai, kaka-ga, ‘twins,’ and the Torresians kai-meg, ‘a comrade.’ In all these words there is no trace of relationship; for they belong to a very early stage of language—the same which gives the prepositional word ka, ‘with,’ ‘together with,’ as in Latin, co-ire, vobis-cum, Greek άμα, Sanskrit sa, sam, where the s stands for an older k. I think that the development of ‘together with’ into the idea of relationship would first appear in such a word as the Chitrali kai, ‘a sister,’ the Epi ko, ‘a brother's sister, a sister's brother.’5 Such words would thus denote primarily “the brothers and sisters in a family who came closest by birth and are most ‘together’ in their youth.” Then the principle of atavism, which the ancients noticed as readily as we do, would apply them to those family relations with whom individuals are most closely connected physically and otherwise; this natural step outwards brings us to ‘a grandfather’ as in Lat. avus for ka-vus; ‘a maternal uncle’ as in Pers. kha-lu; ‘a paternal uncle’ as in Lat. a-vunculus; ‘a husband's sister’ as in Gr. γα-λ-ως and Australian ka-bo. The next step would be to apply these terms to remoter relatives whom choice or sentiment led men to regard as nearer and dearer than any other (as a companion, or a protector, or those protected); here would come in the cousin, male - 7 or female, the nephew or grandson, and even an ancestor. I think that in this way these terms of relationship have sprung from the root ka, and that the underlying idea in them all is that of ‘kindred,’ ‘closeness,’ ‘nearness’—an idea which also finds expression in the Latin term for ‘relations,’ propinqui, that is, ‘those near.’ Hence it follows that, as the root ka conveys a very general idea, the derivatives from it may be applied—even the same word—to different relations in life. Thus, in the Panjabi of India kaka is ‘an elder brother,’ but in Marathi kaka is ‘a paternal uncle,’ while in Samoa 'a'a (that is kaka) means only ‘family relations.’ Therefore, I do not think that ethnologists are justified in saying, as they frequently do, that native tribes regard a father's or mother's brother as an elder brother. To my mind, the evidence of the terms used here only shows that the parties so named are regarded merely as ‘near of kin,’ and it is scarcely possible to suppose that a man would look on his aged and venerable grandfather (kai-med) as merely an elder brother, especially among tribes so reverent and respectful to age as are the Australians.

I now write out in a combined form all the derivatives of this root ka which I have collected, and for the sake of conciseness I indicate the localities where they are used by numbers; thus 1. is Aryan, in India and Europe; 2. Pre-Aryan, in India; 3. Indonesian; 4. Melanesian (general) and Melanesian (special); 5. Torres Straits; 6. Ep-Island (New Hebrides); 7. Fiji; 8. Tukiok, that is Duke of York Island, in the Bismark Archipelago; 9. New Britain, ibidem; while 10. is Polynesian, and 11. is Australian.

Brother (elder).—1, kaka; 2, kako; 3, kaka, kakang; 4, kaka, -hana; 5, kui; 7, -ka; 10, kana; 11, kaka, kakang, kayūga. A man's brother.—5, kai. A woman's brother.—6, ko; 10, -gane. Brother (not defined).—1, kasis; 11, kukka. A brother's wife.—kamari.

Sister (elder).—2, kaki; 4, kaka, kana; 11, kaku, kamuj, karangi. A man's sister.—6, ko. A woman's sister.—5, kai; 10, ka, kana, gane. Sister (undefined).—1, kasis; 2, kai; 11, chachee, kati. A sister's husband.—1, galos. A sister's son.—11, kanie. A sister's daughter's son.—11, kanini.

Uncle (paternal).—1, kaka. Uncle (maternal).—1, khal; 2, kuku; 11, kaka. Uncle (undefined).—10, (matua)-keke; 11, kangan, kandu, kani.

Grandfather.—1, kokuai (plural); 2, kiki; 5, kai; 10, kui. Grandson.—2, chacha.

Mother's mother.—11, kaping. Mother's sister.— 11, kaki. Mother's mother's sister.—11, kaping.

Father's sister's son.—11, kami, kakai.

Husband's mother.—2, kankar; 11, kamin-gun. Husband's sister.—11, kamari, karembari.

Wife's brother.—11, kareti, kabo, kabukari.

Daughter's husband.—11, karugaja. Daughter's son.—11, kamini.

Son's wife.—2, khakin; 11, kamin-gun.

Cousin (undefined).—2, kai: 11, kakuja.

- 8

Relations of family.—10, 'a'a, i.e., kaka.

Companion.—5, kai-meg; 7, kasa; 8, taina.

With, etc. –5, kai-mil (‘with’); 7, kei, 'ai, i.e., kai; 8, kai (‘a couple’); 9, kaba (‘a number of persons together’) ‘ka’ (k)aga (‘twins’); 10, apa (i.e., kapa), ‘a number of workmen together.’

And now, if we pass this list in review, the first thing that strikes the eye is:

• 1. The great variety of the Australian forms—25 in number—and the wide field of relationship which they cover, while the Indian and Indonesian words apply to only three relations—‘elder brother,’ ‘paternal uncle,’ ‘maternal uncle.’
• 2. Nearly all these 25 words have terminations which are distinctly Australian, and therefore the words must have been formed from the root ka on Australian soil.
• 3. This variety in Australia, contrasted with the paucity of the Indian forms, seems to prove that the ancestors of the Australian race must have left India before ka was developed there into kaka; for, if they had gone forth later, kaka would have been the stereotyped root-form for the Australian terminations to be added to. But on the other hand the presence of the forms kaka, kaku, kaki in Australia and Oceania as well as in India may be a proof that a second and late stream of immigrants brought these from India. Other considerations, apart from language, make it probable that at least two streams of blacks came into Australia in succession.
• 4. The simplest forms and the simplest meanings of the root ka occur in Fiji (kai, kei), in Torres' Straits (kai, kui), in Duke of York Island (kai), in Tonga and some remote islands of eastern Polynesia (kui), in Epi (ko), and perhaps in the Australian tribal suffix (-kal, -gal-ang). This fact would mean that these regions received the first and earliest portions of the inflowing tide of negroid people. The kai of the Hindu Kush plateau is probably a survival from the earliest population there, for the Chitrali dialect is now mostly Aryan.
• 5. I have already expressed my belief that ka, the root of all these words, is the same as the Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit word for ‘with.’ In this connection I may now mention that the ceremonial language of Java uses kaleh, ‘with,’ as an affix to the numeral ‘two.’ This kaleh must be of the same origin as the Melanesian kai, and therefore belongs to the language of the pre-Aryan black aborigines of that island.

The Greek κασις (for kaki-s?) also comes near to the root; and here Polynesia throws some light on the Greek language, for Curtius and other Greek etymologists are puzzled to find the origin of κασις. Its connection with the words now under question is made the more - 9 probable, because it has the same variableness of meaning as we see in the Australian and Melanesian words; and γαλως is either viri soror or fratris uxor.

The Papuan islands in Torres' Straits also come near the root by kai-meg, ‘a cousin,’ ‘a comrade,’ and the Ebudans by ko, kave. The Tongan kui, ‘grandparents,’ and the Paumotan kui, ‘an ancestor,’ also belong to this.

That root ka has been very prolific of derivatives in many directions, and, as usual, some of the new forms retain the simple meaning of the root, while others have been specialized and applied to definite relationships in life. For example, ka with the syllable ra added to it becomes kara, which in Urdu, the courtly language of modern Hindustan, appears in the words kara'in, ‘connections,’ and karib, ‘near’ (cf. Lat. propinquus), but the Sanskrit form is chara, ‘a companion, a wife,’ where the root-meaning of ka ‘with, together with’ is clearly shown. This same word kara in the sense of ‘relationship’ has a place in the islands of the New Hebrides; for, on Epi, kara-ma is ‘a paternal uncle,’ kara-a is ‘a maternal or paternal grandmother’; kurua is (m) ‘a brother,’ kulue is (f) ‘a sister’; on Malo and Efate, gore is ‘a cousin,’ and gore-na is (m) ‘a sister’ or (f) a ‘brother.’

I have already said that the Vedic sa-m ‘with,’ is the Latin cum, the s being used for an earlier k; so also the Sanskrit saha may be for saka, for the Maithili dialect of Behar still says saka-la, ‘all’ (in the sense of ‘conjunction’ with); sanga, a ‘companion’; and sama-dhi, ‘a relation.’ Now, an exact equivalent to saha in form and meaning is the Samoan soa (for soha) ‘a companion, the second of a pair, a mate;’ and in the language of Futuna of the New Hebrides—which is a Polynesian, not a Melanesian, dialect—soa is the word for ‘man and wife,’ and in Epi (Melanesian) of the same group, koa is ‘husband or wife,’ and so is ohoa in another dialect of the same island, while ko is (m) ‘a sister,’ or (f) a ‘brother’ and koalo is ‘man and wife,’ that is a ‘pair,’ while ko-vivine, that is, a ‘female-companion ’ is ‘a sister’; with which compare Maori ko-hine, ‘a girl.’ In Maori hoa is ‘an associate,’ ‘a husband or wife,’ originally ‘a companion.’

From these examples, I perceive that the more a dialect adheres to its black ancestry, the more likely is the original guthural k to appear in its words. Thus also, the Fijian has ka-sa, ‘a fellow, a companion,’ rather than any forms from the root sa. Aneityum also (Melanesian) preserves the form kai, which we found among the Papuans of Torres' Straits to mean ‘together with’ for a-kai-na-ga in Aneityumese means ‘engaged, connected as cousins’ (said of males); Efatese has na-kai-na-ga, ‘a tribe, a collection of things of the same kind’; even the Polynesian Maori has kai-nga ‘a collection of individuals,’ which in - 10 Samoan is (k)ai-nga ‘relations, a family.’6 In Japanese kai-sha is ‘a company.’ In Malekulan, hason (for kason) is ‘a wife.’

In Samoan, the conjunction ma ‘and,’ is also the preposition ‘with ’; and so it may be that the Greek και and the Latin ac (for ka) and the enclitic suffix ue all come from our root ka ‘with.’ Certainly in the Latin phrase cum—tum, equivalent to et—et, the cum is used as a conjunction, and not in its prepositional sense. The Latin prefix co (as in co-ire) is nearer to ka than to cum. The use of the conjunctions is to ‘couple’ two statements ‘together’ in a sentence, and that is also the meaning of ‘with.’ In Fijian, ka, kai, kei are ‘and,’ ‘with.’

6. The Samoan, and other Polynesians are said to be of Malay origin because a hundred or so of the simple words in their language are like similar words in the Malay; but the discovery I have made that the words kaka, kaku, kaki exist among true Australians in the very heart of our continent is, I think, of itself sufficient to disprove that Malayo-Polynesian theory; for kaka, kaku are certainly the Malay and Indonesian words kaka, kakang, kakak ‘elder brother,’ and, therefore, by parity of reasoning, these Australian tribes are also Malays, which is absurd. These correspondences of language can be explained only by the evidence now constantly accumulating that the earliest stratum of population in south-eastern Asia, and in all the adjacent islands, and far east into the Pacific Ocean, was negroid and of the same stock as the present Australians and Melanesians. Then, I infer, that the next stratum of population was a fairer people of Caucasian race; settling in the islands they became incorporated with the black tribes, especially on the coast, and adopted a portion of their language; this mixture produced the ancestors of the present brown natives of eastern Polynesia. These again were driven forth into the isles of the Pacific by the arrival in Indonesia of a race of Mongolian origin—the Malays. Malays have never been slow to take up the customs and language of those among whom they live; and thus I account for the fact that in the present Malayan speech there are some words quite the same as in Australia and Polynesia. The Malays are the borrowers. This view of the question also shows how it is that many root-words are found to be the same all over Oceania. The blacks in Indonesia and in Melanesia had them first; the ancestors of the present brown Polynesians got them from the blacks in Indonesia and carried them far afield with them into the islands of the eastern Pacific; and the Malays too adopted them when they came into Indonesia. In past - 11 years I have carefully examined many of the essential words in the Australian dialects (see my book entitled ‘An Australian Language’) and I find them formed from the same roots as occur in Melanesia and Polynesia.

7. This discovery of these words in the Australian dialects also supports the arguments from history which I have elsewhere given in the Journal of The Victoria Institute, London—that our Australians are sprung from the ‘Eastern Ethiopians,’ of Herodotus, who says of the army of Xerxes: “The Ethiopians from the sunrise (for two kinds served in the expedition) were marshalled with the Indians, and did not at all differ from the others in appearance, but only in their language and their hair. For the eastern Ethiopians are straight-haired, but those of Libya have hair more curly than that of any other people. These Ethiopians from Asia were accoutred almost the same as the Indians” (Hero. VII. 30).

The fact also that I have found these same words of relationship to be used in all parts of Australia proves that the people there are homogeneous and their dialects homogeneous.

The force of the present linguistic argument may be shown in a condensed form, thus:—

Diyeri (Australian).

Mother's brother or father's sister's husband	kaka
Father's brother's daughter	kaku
Father's sister's child or mother's brother's child	kami
Elder sister	kaku

MALAY.

An elder brother

kakak

POLYNESIA.

Samoa—A man's brother, a woman's sister	tua-(k)a
” Family relations (for kaka)	'a'a
Maori—An uncle	matua-keke
” An elder brother, an elder sister	tua-kana

NEW GUINEA (Papuan).

Geelwink Bay (N.W. coast).—An uncle	kaki
Motu and S. coast.—An elder brother	'a'ana, kakana
Torres' Straits.—A man's brother, a woman's sister	kai-mer

INDIA.

An elder brother, a paternal uncle

kaka

HINDU-KUSH and HIMALAYAS.

Maternal uncle	kuku
Grandfather	kiki
Grandson	chacha
Sister	kai

Here we have the same words used on the heights of the Himalayas and in the heart of the continent of Australia. Is it possible that the Malays sent these words into so diverse regions of the earth? No; - 12 the Malays borrowed them when they came into Indonesia, which was then occupied by races that had once been in India. To the same effect is the evidence of other words from Australia and India. One tribe in South Australia says kutta for ‘louse.’ This is certainly the Malay, Melanesian, and Polynesian word kutu ‘louse.’ But it was a Sanskrit and Pali word before it became Malay; and the non-Aryan aborigines of Bhutan in the Himalayas also say khit for ‘louse.’ Similarly the standard Australian word for ‘foot’ is din-na. But some of the Naga tribes on the north-east frontier of India and the people of Laos and of Siam to the south of them also say tin for ‘foot.’ The non-Aryan tribes of the Himalayas say mi, mé for ‘fire’; me'k, mik, mok, ‘eye,’ which are certainly the same root-words as the common Australian mi-bara, mil, ‘eye,’ and wi, ‘fire.’

How are all these facts to be accounted for? By confessing that the ancestors of the present Australians, Melanesians, and Polynesians passed through India before they came to occupy their present seats.

These non-Aryan tribes that I have mentioned are interesting, for they are the scattered remains of the earliest population of India. In hair and features they often remind one of the negroid people of other lands. All ethnologists are agreed that the first comers into the Indian peninsula were of the black race, and they probably came in two successive streams—first the Hamites, then the Kushites. When the Aryans subsequently entered the country from the north-west, and spread down the valley of the Ganges, those of the black tribes that did not amalgamate with the invaders spread themselves northwards into the Himalaya slopes, and southwards into and beyond the Vindhya mountains. Thus it is that these Himalaya non-Aryan tribes retain still many words which must have belonged to the languages of the aboriginal blacks of India, although they have also, in the course of time, adopted many words from the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans. If there is any Shemitic element at all in the speech of Oceania—and that is doubtful—it must have been brought in by these blacks.

And to show how important these non-Aryan languages are, I will now give shortly a few comparisons between them and Oceanic words; (1) is the Maithili language in Northern Behar in the corner formed by the junction of the Brahmaputra and the Ganges; this I have culled from the Journals of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; to the north of Behar among the mountains are the native states of Bhutan and Sikim, and in them are the (2) Kocch, (3) the Bodo, and (4) the Dhimal; eastwards from them are (5) the Naga tribes with a Mongolian element; and to the westward in Nepal are (6) broken non-Aryan tribes, bearing various names. Vocabularies of the speech of these - 13 tribes here numbered 2 to 6, are given in “Hodgson's Essays on Oriental Subjects.” From them I am enabled to make some comparisons, thus:—

Woman.—1, bhabini, ‘wife’; 4, mahani, ‘female’ (as a prefix); 6, baigini, ‘woman.’ Cf. Malay, bini, ‘wife’; Indonesian, babineh, mahina, mapin, ‘wife’; Oceanic, fafine, vihin, haine, fine,-hine, ‘woman.’

Sleep (to).—1, suta-b; 2, suti-bar; 6, sút-uk, sút. Cf. ma-huta (the Motu of New Guinea).

Rain.—4, wai. Cf. Oceanic, vai, wai, ‘water.’

Fish.—2, macha; 6, machha. Cf. Malay, ikan (for vikan?); Admiralty Islands, uke (for vuke?); Vanikoro Island, na-mok, no-mu (where the na is an article-prefix); Australian, makoro; Sanskrit, muka, ‘fish’; aborigines of Central India, haku.

Stone.—4, pathar. Cf. Malay, batu; Oceanic, fatu.

Face.—2, mukh. Cf. Malay, mūka, ‘face’; Maldive, munu, ‘face’; Dravidian, mun, ‘before’; Amboyna, uwaka, ‘face’; Pamir, múk, ‘forehead.’

Hand.—2, hath; 6, hát, bhit; gót, ‘hand and forearm’; 5, kha. Cf. Papuan of Torres' Straits, getö; Pali, hattho, ‘hand,’ mutthi, ‘fist’; Ceylon, ata, ‘hand’; Australian, muttara, ‘hand and fore-arm’; Fiji, getegete (ni liga), ‘hand.’

Land.—1, bádha, ‘lands surrounding a village’; 4, bhan-oi, ‘earth,’ ‘land,’ ‘soil.’ Cf. Oceanic fan-ua, ‘land.’ The Maithili often adds ua to a root-word, as ghar, ghar-ua.

House.—5, ham, hum; 6, kim, kyim, tim. Cf. Burmese, im; New Hebrides, im, ima, yum, yimo, n-eom.

Flower.—6, phung. Cf. Malay, būnga; Samoan, fūnga.

Child.—6, ta-wa (ta-wo), ‘boy,’ ta-mi, ‘girl,’ ‘daughter. Cf. Samoan, ta-ma, ‘boy’; Oceanic, ta, tamata, tagata, kanaka, ‘man, mankind.’ For the generic term ‘children ’ the Nepalese tribes say tamitawa, ‘girl-boy’; with that compare the Samoan invented term for ‘cattle,’ bulli-ma-kau, ‘bull-and-cow.’

Dog.—6, uri. Cf. the Pamirian kuri and Oceanic kuri.

It is clear that many of the mountain words in this list are purely aboriginal; it is also clear that neither the Australians nor the Malays, nor the Melanesians, nor the Polynesians can have carried them back to India and up the slopes of the Himalayas and planted them there. There remains, therefore, only one possible explanation—that the ancestors of these races were once in contact with the aboriginals of India and brought the language with them when they came forth into Indonesia and Oceania.

Let me close with one word from a physical standpoint. Here is the verdict of a German naturalist on the race differences of the Malay and the Polynesian:—

FEATURES OF CRANIA.

Malay.—1, zygomatic bones—small; 2, base length—very constant, 96 to 98 millimetres; 3, height—equal and constant; 4, roof—usually flat; 5, false prognathism.

Polynesian.—1, zygomatic bones—great breadth; 2, base length—long and very narrow; 3, height—moderate; 4, Polynesian skulls viewed in profile are - 14 arched; viewed in front they are roof-shaped, and are always heavy and massive as compared with the thin Malay skulls.

‘The Malay and Polynesian are thus separated by cranial formation.’

Everyone knows the value of craniometry as a test of race, and the result of that test here establishes essential differences.

Then as to race characters; take Wallace's description of the Malay and contrast it with that of a Maori or a Samoan: ‘The Malay,’ he says, ‘is naturally easy-going and indolent; he is reserved, diffident, and shy; he shows no astonishment, surprise, or fear; he is slow and deliberate of speech; the Malay is timid; when alone, he is gloomy and taciturn, never singing or talking to himself; yet he has the most pitiless cruelty and contempt of human life.’

Does that character fit the brown Polynesian?

Illustration

1  Those words are interesting as coming from the Chitral and Gilgit regions in which British troops were lately operating.

2  Kaka, kaku, kaki. This looks like an instance of sex-distinction in Australian grammar.

3  (m) means when a male is speaking; (f), when a female is speaking.

4  For all the foregoing examples I am indebted to Mr. Howitt.

5  On the evidence of their daily speech, I imagine that some of these Oceanic people saw a special ‘nearness’ of relationship between a brother and a sister; whether a physical or a spiritual connection I cannot at present tell. The practice of convade elsewhere shows a belief in a physical union of father and child. In Samoa, when a high-chief fell ill, a sister's curse was at once suspected to be the cause, and she had to exonerate herself. A sister's curse was supposed to be very potent.

6  We scarcely agree with Dr. Fraser, that Kainga in Maori, means a “collection of individuals,” except in the sense that a ‘village’ is one. Kainga, means rather a place where food is eaten, or where fires are lit, and it is the usual term for a village, a home not fortified.—Editor's.