Note 1264 — Chapter XXI · DIANUS AND DIANA

As dialectal differences in the ancient Italian languages seem to have created a multiplicity of deities, so in the Malay language they appear to have created a multiplicity of fabulous animals. See R. J. Wilkinson, Malay Beliefs (London and Leyden, 1906), p. 56: “The wealth of Malay nomenclature in the province of natural history is in itself a fruitful source of error. The identity of different dialectic names for the same animal is not always recognized: the local name is taken to represent the real animal, the foreign name is assumed to represent a rare or fabulous variety of the same genus.” In these cases mythology might fairly enough be described as a disease of language. But such cases cover only a small part of the vast mythical field.