Dr. Whymant has been studying the origin of the Japanese race for many years, and the brief paper he read epitomizes the work several years of painstaking investigation and study.
"When a Japanese goes to Malaya," Dr. Whymant said, "he Jearns the language in a comparatively small space of time." He gave a series of examples pointing out a strange and strong affinity between the Japanese language and the Malayan tongue.
Sir Charles Eliot maintained that there was a radical difference in the two tongues, in that, while the speech of the Malays abounds with prefixes, that of the Japanese has almost a super-abundance of eusfix Elaborating his theory, Dr. Why-mant explained that the reason for the small stature of the Japanese is that they clung to the light, frail structures, so splendidly adaptable for the warm tropical isles of the South Seas, even when they migrate ed to a severer climate. Forced at first by the severity of the elements to lead an indoor life, they had recourse to considerable squatting, there lecturer maintained, losing a great deal of their original stature. Even to-day, he said, those Japanese who lead an out-of-doors life, like huntsman and fishermen, retain the original tall stature ancestors possessed.
"Moreover," said Dr. Whymant, "ancestor worship, the plethora of gods and goddesses, the mythology of Japan, are identical with those of the Polynesians. The temples of Nikko and Kyushu are really a Japanese variation, because of cli matic conditions, of the edifices that were erected in Java and in the Malay archipelago in earlier times."
Language Theory Uncertain Dr. Self, in supporting Dr. Why-mont, said that, when in Samoa and other' South Sea islands held by Imperial Germany, he had often remarked the strong resemblance in the locution of the speech of the people of those regions to the Japanese Language. The culture of he said, and their th identical with that races. of the South Dr, Ramstedt, the Minister here for 'Finland, who is also a student, of ethnology, said he could not accept any theory yet advanced as regards the origin' of the Japanese, but that language was an uncertain-factor whereby $0. judge the origins of peoples. As proofs he pointed to the languages of East Europe and asked. how we' would ever, when. more years have rolled away, figure out the ancestry of jean, Negro if, language be the er the ing was
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.