ABSTRACT
The Pagan gentlemen and merchants have this custom amongst them. There will sometimes be two merchants who will be great friends, and each will have a wife; and one merchant will say to the other in this wise: “ Langal perganal monaton ondo ?’51 that is ,“ So-and-so, have we been a long time friends ? ” The other will answer: “ Hognan perga manaton ondo ;” that is, “ Yes, I have for a long time been your friend.” The other says: “ Nipatanga ciolli?” that is, “ Do you speak the truth that you are my friend ? ” The other will answer, and say: “ H o ; ” that is, “ Yes.” Says the other one : “ Tamarani ? ” that is, “ By God ? ” The other replies : “ Tamarani! ” that is, “ By G od ! ” One
1 I had hoped to have been able, by the assistance o f others, to reduce this and the subsequent native words and phrases introduced by Var thema into readable Malayalim, in the same manner as I have treated his Arabic sentences; but the attempt has proved unsuccessful. Two Malayalim scholars, to whom they were submitted, concur in forming a very low estimate o f our traveller’s attainments in that language. One o f the gentlemen states that u the majority o f the words are not Malayalim, or, if they are, the writer has trusted to his ear, and made a marvellous confusion, which I defy anybody to unravel.” This is not to be wondered a t ; on the contrary, there would have been reasonable ground for surprise if, under his peculiar circumstances, Varthema had succeeded in mastering, even to a tolerable extent, any one o f the native languages. During his sojourn in the country, which was com paratively short, and seldom lasting more than a few days at each place, he must have heard several different dialects spoken, without any definite knowledge, perhaps, that they were such. Moreover, as his most intimate associates appear to have been the Arab traders, who, however long their intercourse with India, seldom speak any of the native languages correctly, he most probably acquired most o f his vocabu lary from them, jumbling that up with words and phrases which he had picked up here and there along the coast. The specimens o f his Arabic are undoubtedly far superior to his essays in Malayalim, and, although strongly Italianized, by no means inferior to the colloquial o f the majority o f his countrymen at the present day after a much longer residence in the East where that is the vernacular language.
