Sydney Parkinson's Savu list

[Richard Parker]

I tried to make sense of Parkinson's Sumatra wordlist (because, to my untutored 
  eye, it looked so strange), but had to give up.
http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/parkinson/239.html
   
  I have a transcription of whatever I gleaned in Excel chart form, which I'll be 
  happy to send to anyone who would like it, and could make better sense of it than 
  I did.
   
  There seems to have been a publishing mixup:
1 page (247) is headed:
NUMERATION of the Negroes on the River GAMBIA in AFRICA.
Another (242):
A VOCABULARY of the LANGUAGE spoken by the People of the Island MADAGASCAR.
another (241) has:
NUMERATION of the Natives of CERAM, an island in the EAST-INDIES
   
  Parkinson died at sea from dysentery contracted at Princes Island, Sunda Strait, 
  on the way to Cape Town, in early 1771. His journal was published by his brother, Stanfield, in 1773.
 
  Since, so far as I am aware, Parkinson never visited the Gambia, or Madagascar, or 
  Ceram, or Anjenga, on the coast of Malabar, where he listed 'High Malay'(p 236) it 
  would seem that his brother added extra wordlists that Sydney had collected 
  somewhere, without being able to understand their significance. 
   
  He spent 13 days on Princes Island, but passed most of his time, fruitlessly, 
  trying to buy food: Quote: "Mr. Banks replied, that he supposed it was because 
  they found a deficiency of turtle, of which there not being enough to supply one 
  ship, many could not be expected. To supply this defect, he advised his Majesty to 
  breed cattle, buffaloes, and sheep, a measure which he did not seem much inclined 
  to adopt." (In other words, he thought the great English botanist was as mad as a 
  hatter - he was probably dead right).
   
  regards
  Richard Parker
Siargao Island, The Philippines. 
  My website at www.coconutstudio.com is about the island and its people,  coastal early humans, fishing, coconuts, bananas and whatever took my fancy at the time.
   
  
 
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