Note 1 — Chapter V

“It may here be incidentally remarked, that while so many authors are endeavoring to prove that the Asiatic archipelago was peopled from the Western Continent,1 they overlook the fact of the radical difference of language. Unless the roots of the language can be traced either to India, Cambodia, or other parts, it must follow, as a matter of course, that the islands were peopled at a time previous to the introduction of the language now spoken on the Continent; else how are we to account for the simple dialects of a rude people being radically distinct from the language of the mother country? If the Dyaks of Borneo and the Arafuras of Celebes and New Guinea speak a dialect of the Polynesian, it will go far to prove an original people as well as an original language, that is, as original as the Celtic, the Teutonic, the South American; original because not derived from any known source.