108 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE pagated by the slow and gradual means of religiouf conversion, effected, just as in later times, the Arabic, by the Mahomedans, tlirough the activity and in* trigues of a few dexterous priests. The Sanskrit, it may be said, forms a more essential, necessary, and copious portion of the Insular languages than the Arabic ; but this may be explained. The de- fects of the Insular languages had been supplied through the Sanskrit before they knew the Arabic, and since then the advancement of society in the In- dian isles has not been such as to render an influx of new words necessary, even could the Arabic have sup- plied what the Sanskrit did not afford. The most puzzling circumstance, at first view, is the fact of the Sanskrit language not being mixed in the dia- lects of the Indian islands with any living dialect of India ; but this apparent difficulty tends, on a nearer inspection, to clear up the history of its in- troduction. Had any living tongue been intro- duced with it, we should have no doubt but the language had been introduced through conquest and subjugation, or commercial intercourse. The conquerors and the conquered mixing, would un- doubtedly have mixed their languages, and we should see not only the peculiar corruptions of the Indian dialect, but, superinduced on these, the im- perfection of oral communication. Even supposing the conquerors of the Indian islands to have been the very nation who spoke the Sanskrit language,
