Makasar Numerals

The vocabulary of Makasar (glottocode: maka1311) is one of several in Yankievich de Mirievo’s Dictionary that consists of numerical terms only.  More often than not, this is an indication that the vocabulary derives from the appendix to Vol. II of Peter Simon Pallas’ Comparative Dictionary (pp. 472-490).  This appendix, entitled “Numbers of European and Asiatic Peoples”, lists the numbers one to ten, one hundred, and one thousand in 223 different languages.  Twenty eight of these languages are not represented by any other vocabulary items in Pallas’ dictionary.  The numerical terms are all that attest to these languages in the dictionaries of both Pallas and Yankievich at the end of the eighteenth century.

The Makasar vocabulary is a curious one because it consists of only seven numerals which were chosen, seemingly, at random.  Not even the numbers 1-10 are reproduced consecutively, and the numbers 100 and 1000 are missing entirely.  These features are common to both Yankievich’s and Pallas’ dictionaries – so it is evident that they were not introduced by Yankievich, but instead were inherited directly from Pallas, his predecessor.  This is unfortunate, since the numerical appendix to Pallas’ dictionary is notorious for its inaccuracy and unreliability.

In fact, the Makasar vocabulary constitutes one of the most egregious cases of sloppiness in Pallas’ Appendix, because the vocabulary on which it is based contains all ten numbers from 1 to 10 and even includes a term for 100.  Why Pallas and his editors chose not to include the full set of Makasar numbers in the Appendix to Volume II will likely remain a mystery.  The fact is that they had direct access to all of the missing numbers.  Through carelessness or haste, they just happened not to include them.

The source for the Makasar numerals in both Pallas’ and Yankievich’s dictionaries is the “List of words of universal use as spoken in twelve different countries or districts”, which appears in William Marsden’s “Remarks on the Sumatran Languages”, published in 1782.  This list is implicated in several other vocabularies in the dictionaries, so it is not surprising to see it exploited here.  It is surprising, however, to see how poorly it is exploited.  In addition to the omission of at least four of the numerals noted above, there is considerable confusion regarding the precise meaning or signification of the remainder.  In fact, Pallas, in his appendix, got the meaning of all but one of the number terms wrong.  Consider the following table:

In this table, the Makasar numerals are presented in the order in which they appear in Marsden (1782).  The order of the numerals in Yankievich (from Pallas) has been adjusted in order to match Marsden’s numerals according to form, not meaning.  As can be seen, all of the numerals, except for the number 6, are mis-translated (and four of them, of course, are missing).  Why Pallas and his editors got the meaning of these numerical terms wrong is anybody’s guess – but they clearly did.  This is just one more instance of sloppiness in Yankievich’s Dictionary that can be directly attributed to the numerical appendix in Pallas’.

References:

Marsden, William. 1782. “Remarks on the Sumatran Languages by Mr. Marsden. In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. President of the Royal Society. Read February 22, 1781.” Archaeologia, or Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, VI., pp, 154-158.

Pallas, Peter Simon. 1787-1789. Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa; Augustissimae cura collecta. Sectionis Primae, Linguas Europae et Asiae complexae., Vols. 1-2. Petropoli: Tipis Iohannis Caroli Schnoor.

Yankievich de Mirievo, Theodor. 1790-1791. Сравнительный словарь всѣхъ языковъ и нарѣчій, по азбучному порядку расположенный. Vols. 1-4. Saint Petersburg: Tip. Brejtkopfa.