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Show 424 'l'llE MONOGENIS'rS AND to sincere stnd nts of comparative philology. lloro science fools itself r liovod fl'om verbal transcond0ntali m, so sublime that it is m aninrrlcRs, in wl1ich tho hybrid school of Anglo- orman otlrnologisLI:! <1 lights: and tl1is volume, at any rate, docs not" toaclr grammat · as if thor were no language, geography as if there were no oal'th." Mr. rawfu r·d,-unliko some of his English contemr orarics who, grouping into liWo catalogues all tho t011gues known or unknown upon arth, of which it i.s materially impossible that any one man's brain, or lifetime, could gaLhcr oven tho rudiments, proclaim that "philology pr vee the uniLy" of human origins-Mr. Crawfurd tl10roughly und rstttnds his subject, and writes so that oven omselvcs can u nclcr~:~Lltnd him. "'l'h ro cxif!Ls in .Java, as in Northern .and Southam India, in Ceylon, in Birma, and iam, an ancient recondite language, but it is not, as in those ountr·i A, any longer tho language of Jaw and rcligio1r, but a more dead ton{J'uo. 'J'his language goes under tho name of ~n.wi, a word whicl1 moans' narrative,' or' talc,' and is not tl~e specific name of any national tongue. Most probably it is a corruption ~(' Lh. .anscrit kavya, 'a nanation.' In Java there arc found many mscl'lpt.rons, boLh on brass and stone, the groat majodty of which on xamination, ar found to consist of various ancient modification~ of the present wriLL n character." * * * * * * * " omc writers bav supposed tho Kawi to be a foreign tongn , introduced into Java ~t somo unknown epoch, but th r is no gr·ound for this notion, as 1ts g noml acc~.rdan~o wiLh the ordinary langun.g.e plainly shows. Ind pendent of 1ts borng tho language ofinseripLions, it is, also, that of tl1o most r markablo liLer~wy productions of tho Javanese amoncr which, the most eel •bratod is the Bratayuda, or 'war of the closcondants of Bamt,' a kir~d of abstL"act of tho IIindu Mabaharat." * * * (proh:thlo dn.te, about. A. D. 1105). In it, "ncar 80 pads in J 00, 01. four-1tfths of tho Kaw1, arc mod rn Javanese." * * * * * "Wh tl1 cro f o·r , 't · 'd on, 1 :s. const crcd tl1at tho Kawi is no longct· tho language of law or r hg10n, hut merely a dead lauo-tULO' it is not difficult to uncl r·stand how it comes to be so little u~dc~s{ood · while in d ·- ] . . . . ) ) 001 p 1cr·ru•r Jnscl'rptwns, Lhc diiliculty is enhanc d by an obsolete cha-ractot ·." * * * * "Kawi is 01rly an antiquated Javanese.'' "Th.o ~llustrious philosopher, linguist, and statesman, the late Baron WIIltn.m IIumholclt, has, in his largo work on the Kawi of Java cxprcssc~ ~he opin~on that tho Tagala of the Philippines is tho mo t P01:~'ct hvmg spcc1men of that Malayan tongue which with other wnters, he fancies to have been tho parental st~ck fro'm which all tho. ~th~r tongu ? of the brown race in the Eastern Archipelago tho hlllpprnes, the Islands of the Pacific, and even the language '0/ Ma- 'l'IIE POLYOENIS'l'S. 4.25 dagaAcar·, have sprung. I cannot help thinking that this hypothesis, maintaino<l with mueh incr nuity, must have ot·iginated in this eminent scltolm·'s practical unacquaintance witlt any one language of tlu> many wlticlt came undet· !tis consideration; and that, had he possessed tho necessary knowl clgo, tho more rnnning over the pages of any Philippine dictionary would }lave satisfied ltim of tho errol' of hiH thoor·y. I conclude, then, by xpt·cAsing my conviction that, as fae aH tho oviclonco yielded by a compal'ison of tho Tagala, Bisaya, an<l Pampanga languages with the Malay and Javanese goes, there is no more ground f'ol' believing that tho Philippine and Malayan Jan{J'uagoH have a common origin, than ior concluding that Spani. hand P rtugueso ar miLic languages, because tboy contain a few hnnclr d words of Arabic, or that tho Welsh anclirisharoofLatin origin, because tl1oy contain a good mn.ny words of LaLin; or that Italian is of (;lotbie origin, b canso it ontai ns a far gr a tot· number of words of Ten tonic origin than any Pllili.ppino language docs of Malay and Javanosc." 01 How Orawf'nl'd ui.Rposcs of the Malayan tongues, scgr· gating thir; group victoriously from all others, bas be n previously i.ndicat •d in M. Manry's chapter·, [ante. pp. 79-80]. Our· purpose is answ ·r·cd by publishing, in th said haptor, proofs that linguiHtic sci nco has progrossed consiclorahly since 1836, when tho diR<ptisiLion on tho "J(awisprachc" was written; and that, while to Wilhelm von Humboldt h; gratefully ac ord <1 the hi{J'hcst posi,tion in philology as it stood 20 years ag , it is injusLico to tho memory of a gl'cat man to qnoto his authority as LanLarnount to a finality, wh n he himself (were he now alive) would have kept pace with tho latosL discoveries in science, aR when, -to l1is honor be it rocogni?.od-hc was the jit·st qnalificcl critic, 011t of Franco, to welcome and pr mote Champollion-lo-J cunc's hioroglyphical dcciphcrin{J's ; 52 nnapr all d hims lf, if oth rs were not, at tho stol'm which ign ranee and suporHtiLion everywhere had rais d against tho immortal Frenchman. It is to Lho sur·viving brotho·r that Icl lor dedicates his work" Aloxanclro ab Humboldt, Gormanorum quotqnot fu01·e, snnt, crnntquo decori sacmm." In his own person, tho uonogon rian patt'iarch 61 Soo 1tlso 'l'lie Westminster Review, No. xviii, Apdl, 1 !l66 ; London od., Art. iii. on " Type~ of MrLHkiml;" 1 p. 378-6. In thnnking tho review t' for Lho ftLiruess of his criti(Juo upon • ow· wol'l<, let mo point out Lwo oversights conlniHod ill his obliging o,rticle: lst.-(p. 3(il) Prof. Ag11~Aiz Hover croo,ted rL "Hottentot" realm; buL merely includorl o, Hottentot Fauna in his" Africnn" rcrLlm (ROO 'l'ypes, p. lxxvii.): 2d.-(p. !'lll7) by referring, ns I hnvo dono, to Morton's llluslrutecl System of lfuman .Anatomy (P· 161 ), ho will find thrLt tho Doctor wrote "o, climo,to tL8 cold o,s Trolo,nd," not Iceland: so thnt Lhore romnins no "double miR to,ko," except tho ptLir o,bovo oomwiLt d by tho reviewer. ~2 ln1·:1.1m, Jlrrmapio11 (supm, note 17); ohnp. X..'i:XI, "Lottro do M. lo Darou Guillo,umo de Humboldt t1 M. Cho,mpollion." |
