Note 10 — Chapter II

It is not easy to prove the origin of these peoples but their language might supply some light. Although the languages spoken by the Indians are many and diverse, they resemble one another so closely that it is recognized clearly that they are all dialects of one and the same tongue, as the Spanish, French, and Italian are of the Latin. The prepositions and pronouns are almost the same in all of them, the numerals differ but slightly, many words are common to all, and they have the same structure. This language, which is one single language, with different dialects, is spoken from Madagascar to Philipinas and no one can contradict this.10 I add that it is spoken in Nueva Guinea and in all the lands of the south, in the Marianas, in the islands of San Duisk, in those of Otayti,11 and in almost all the islands of the South Sea. In a collection of voyages wherein are found several dictionaries of the terms which the travelers could learn in each one of these islands I have seen with wonder that the pronouns are almost all the same; that in the Tagálogs the numerals resemble those of any other language of these islands, and most of the words are the same and have the same meaning as in the Tagálog language. But the thing which made me believe more in the identity of these languages was my examination of Don Juan Hovel, an Englishman, who spoke the dialect of San Duisk with a servant of his who was a native of those islands. I found that the construction was the same as that of the languages which are spoken in Philipinas. Consequently, I had no reason to doubt that all these languages are dialects of one speech which is the most extensive in the world, and which is spoken through many thousands of leguas from Madagascar to the islands of San Duisk, Otayti, and the island of Pasquas12 which is not six hundred leguas distant from America; and the fact that the Indians of Philipinas do not understand the peoples of those islands when they pass through their lands does not offer any argument against this supposition, for neither do the Spaniards understand the French, nor in these islands do those of some provinces understand one another.