Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/131

UpAST-INSULAR LANGUAGES. 113 from the most improved race, from the language ill which the Sanskrit exists in the greatest purity and greatest abundance, and not from a ruder tribe or more meagre language, in which it exists but thin*- ly scattered. This strong presumptive evidence is very satisfactory ; but more positive and conclusive testimony may be drawn from an actual examina- tion of the languages. I have already produced ex* amples of compound words in Malay, in which the Javanese and Sanskrit are united as component parts. Futro, a son, and putri^ a daughter, in San- skrit, mean strictly the same thmg in Javanese, but belong exclusively to the language of respect, from whence they have been transferred to the Malay, where they are used in the limited sense of prince and princess, or son and daughter of a king. The word puj a, prayer, in Sanskrit, becomes in the polite dialect of Java ptiji^ which corruption of the word is the only form in which it appears in Ma- lay. N agar a is a city in Sanskrit ; in the ordi- nary language of Java the word is preserved with- out alteration ; but in the language of deference it becomes nagari ; and this corrupt form, de- rived from the peculiar genius of the Javanese, is admitted into the Malay where the word has no other. In discussing the subject of a great Polynesiaii language, I have attempted to show, that many evi- dences exist of a considerable degree of local and VOL, II. H