This e-text includes characters that will only display in UTF-8 (Unicode) file encoding:
ḳ, ḥ, ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṃ, ṛ (letters with dot under: except ḳ and ḥ, these are used only in Sanskrit words)
ṅ (n with dot over, in Sanskrit words)
ă, ĕ, ŭ (vowel with breve or “short” sign: only ĕ is common)
ā (a with macron or “long” sign)
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In the section on Sanskrit origins, anusvara was printed as m̃ (m with tilde). It has been changed in this e-text to ṃ (m with dot under) for more reliable display. Note also that ś is written as ç, ṣ as sh, and ṛ as ṛi.
Footnote 53 of the Introduction refers to “the peculiar vowel sound represented in Arabic by the letter ain ... denoted by the Greek rough breathing”. The reference is to the glottal stop. It is represented in this e-text with a single opening quote ‘ because this will display more reliably than the printed text’s ‛ or ῾ (“Greek rough breathing”, equivalent to a “reversed high-nine” single quote).
A few typographical errors have been corrected. They are shown in the text with mouse-hover popups. Hyphenization is as in the original. Note that in modern written Malay, hyphens are generally not used except in duplications such as “siapa-siapa”.
Contents
(added by transcriber)
Preface
Introduction
Part I
Part II: Lessons I-XII
Part III: Lessons XIII-XXX
Part IV: Lessons XXXI-XL
Appendix to Part IV
Part V: Vocabulary
A
MANUAL OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE.
NEW WORKS ON
MALAY LANGUAGE
HANDBOOK OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE, for the Use of Tourists and Residents. By Kelly and Walsh.
SPREEKT GIJ MALEISCH? Words and phrases in Dutch, Malay, French, German, and English. By Jzn. Rijnenberg. Fourth Edition. 163 pages, oblong 8vo. 1901. 3s. 6d. net.
PRACTICAL MALAY GRAMMAR, with Reading and Translation Exercises. By W. G. Shellabear. 83 pages, 8vo, bound. 1899. 5s. net. All Malay words are printed in Roman characters only.
MALAY-ENGLISH VOCABULARY, containing 6500 Malay words and phrases. By W. G. Shellabear. 141 pages, 8vo, cloth. 1902. 6s. net. Printed in Roman characters only.
MALAY-ENGLISH DICTIONARY. By R. J. Wilkinson. 4to. 1901-3. Unbound, £2, 10s.; bound, £3, 3s. The Malay words are printed in Arabic and in Roman characters.
ENGLISH-MALAY VOCABULARY. By F. A. Swettenham. Fifth Edition. 245 and xxxii pages, 8vo, cloth. 1905. 8s. 6d. net.
MALAY-ENGLISH VOCABULARY. By F. A. Swettenham. New edition in preparation.
⁂ Malay words printed both in Arabic and Roman characters.
TRAVELLER’S MALAY PRONOUNCING HANDBOOK, for the Use of Travellers and Newcomers to Singapore. Seventh Edition. 317 and xxvi pages, 12mo, cloth. 1904. 5s.
Printed in Roman characters only.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co. Ltd.
Dryden House, Gerrard Street, W.
A MANUAL
OF THE
MALAY LANGUAGE.
WITH
An Introductory Sketch of the
Sanskrit Element in Malay.
BY
WILLIAM EDWARD MAXWELL,
OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW;
ASSISTANT RESIDENT, PERAK, MALAY PENINSULA.
EIGHTH EDITION.
LONDON:
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO. LTD
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1907
Je n’en refuis aulcune de phrases qui s’usent emmy les rues;
ceux qui veulent combattre l’usage par la grammaire se mocquent.
Montaigne.
PREFACE.
The language which I have endeavoured to illustrate in the following pages is the Malay of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, some knowledge of which I have had the opportunity of acquiring during sixteen years’ service in Penang, Province Wellesley, Malacca, Singapore, and Perak.
Dialectical peculiarities are so abundant in Malay that it is impossible to teach the colloquial language of the people without imparting to the lesson the distinct marks of a particular locality. In parts of India it is said proverbially that in every twelve kos there is a variation in the language,1 and very much the same might be said of the Malay Peninsula and adjacent islands. The construction of the language and the general body of words remain, of course, the same, but in every state or subdivision of a state there are
Native pedantry has endeavoured to classify various styles of speaking, as the court style (bahasa dalam), the well-bred style (bahasa bangsawan), the trader’s language (bahasa dagang), and the mixed language (bahasa kachau-kan), but all that can be correctly said is, that a limited number of words are used exclusively in intercourse with royal personages; that persons of good birth and education, in the Eastern Archipelago, as elsewhere, select their expressions more carefully than the lower classes; and that the vocabulary of commerce does not trouble itself with the graces of style and the copious use of Arabic words which commend themselves to native writers.
The written language is more stilted and less terse and idiomatic than the colloquial dialect; and even where pure Malay is employed, the influence of Arabic compositions is very marked. Whole sentences, sometimes, though clothed in excellent Malay, are unacknowledged translations of Arabic phrases. This may be verified by any one well acquainted with Malay literary compositions who will look into a really good translation of an Arabic work; for instance, Lane’s translation of the “Thousand and One Nights.” The Malay speaks much better than he writes, and has at his command quantities of words which never find their way into his literature, and, therefore, but rarely into dictionaries compiled by Europeans.
The spelling of Malay words in the native character is hardly yet fixed, though the Perso-Arabic alphabet has been in use since the thirteenth century; and those follow but a vain shadow who seek to prescribe exact modes of spelling words regarding which even native authorities are not agreed, and of which the pronunciation may vary according to locality. The experience of Crawfurd sufficiently proves this; there are words in his dictionary which are transliterated in as many as four different ways.
Two classes of works in his own language have hitherto been at the service of the English student of Malay—grammars, more or less scientifically arranged, and vocabularies and books of dialogues, which presuppose some knowledge of grammatical construction.
The Malay Grammar of Marsden is an admirable work, of unquestionable utility to the advanced student; but it contains more than the beginner wants to know. Crawfurd’s Malay Grammar, too, is hardly a work to put into the hands of a beginner.
Mere vocabularies, on the other hand, teach nothing but words and sentences, and throw no light upon forms of construction.
It has been my aim to supply a work which will be at once an elementary grammar and a compendium of words and sentences, which will teach the colloquial dialect and yet explain grammatical rules; and for this I have taken as my model the Hindustani
The language is not ennobled by having been the speech of men who have made their mark in the world’s history. The islands of Indonesia have never startled the Eastern world with an Akbar, or charmed it with a Hafiz or a Chand. Receptivity, not originality, is the characteristic of the Malay races. But the importance of Malay, when the traveller heads eastward from the Bay of Bengal, has been recognised by Europeans since the sixteenth century, when Magellan’s Malay interpreter was found to be understood from one end of the Archipelago to the other. It is the strong and growing language of an interesting people, and (in the words of a recent writer on Eastern languages) “for Malay, as for Hindustani, a magnificent future may be anticipated among the great speech-media of Asia and of the world. They manifest that capacity for the absorption and assimilation of foreign elements which we recognise as making English the greatest vernacular that the world has ever seen.”2
W. E. M.
The Residency, Larut, Perak,
July 1, 1881
1. Beames, Comparative Grammar of the Aryan Languages, p. 101.
2. Cust, Modern Languages of the East Indies, 150.