The Malay Archipelago - Volume I - A Narrative Of Travel By Alfred Russel Wallace.





























































 -  Their language is in vogue through the Indies, as
the French is here.

At present, a vessel over a hundred - Page 41
The Malay Archipelago - Volume I - A Narrative Of Travel By Alfred Russel Wallace. - Page 41 of 419 - First - Home

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Their Language Is In Vogue Through The Indies, As The French Is Here.

At present, a vessel over a hundred tons hardly ever enters its port, and the trade is entirely confined to a few petty products of the forests, and to the fruit, which the trees, planted by the old Portuguese, now produce for the enjoyment of the inhabitants of Singapore.

Although rather subject to fevers, it is not at present considered very unhealthy.

The population of Malacca consists of several races. The ubiquitous Chinese are perhaps the most numerous, keeping up their manners, customs, and language; the indigenous Malays are next in point of numbers, and their language is the Lingua-franca of the place. Next come the descendants of the Portuguese - a mixed, degraded, and degenerate race, but who still keep up the use of their mother tongue, though ruefully mutilated in grammar; and then there are the English rulers, and the descendants of the Dutch, who all speak English. The Portuguese spoken at Malacca is a useful philological phenomenon. The verbs have mostly lost their inflections, and one form does for all moods, tenses, numbers, and persons. Eu vai, serves for "I go," "I went," or, "I will go." Adjectives, too, have been deprived of their feminine and plural terminations, so that the language is reduced to a marvellous simplicity, and, with the admixture of a few Malay words, becomes rather puzzling to one who has heard only the pure Lusitanian.

In costume these several peoples are as varied as in their speech.

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