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The Malay, Javan and Princes Island all have words in them either e[x]actly like, or else plainly deriving their origin from the same source with others in the Language of the South Sea Islands: this is particularly visible in their Numbers, from whence one should at first be enclind to suppose that their learning at least had been derivd originaly from one and the same source. But how that strange problem of the numbers of the Black inhabitants of Madagascar, so vastly similar to those of Otahite, could have come to pass surpasses I confess my skill to conjecture. The numbers that I give overleaf in the Comparative table I had from a Negro slave Born at Madagascar, who was at Batavia with an English ship, from whence he was sent for merely to satisfie my curiosity in the language. There being much fewer words in the Princes Island language similar to S. Sea words is oweing in great measure to my not having taken a sufficient quantity of words upon the spot to compare with it.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 527, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-445.html