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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