A grammar and dictionary of the Malay language : with a preliminary ...

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS. 67
Indian islands, in so far as fertility, natural productions, and
facility of intercommunication are concerned, are inferior to
the islands and shores of the Mediterranean, had they been
occupied by a race of equal intellectual endowment with the
inhabitants of the latter.
The Malay is very deficient in abstract words ; and the usual
train of ideas of the people who speak it does not lead them to
make a frequent use, even of the few they possess. With respect
to material objects, indeed, there is a kind of abstraction or
generalisation practised, which results more from the poverty
than the fullness of the language. A number of objects are
classed under one head, the name of the class being taken from
the most conspicuous or familiar individual belonging to it, which
becomes, in fact, the type of the family. This, in a rude way,
resembles the process pursued by European naturalists in the
classification of objects. Many examples of this occur. The
word ubi is a yam or dioscorea, but under it, with epithets to
characterise them, are classed several species of dioscorea, a
solanum, a convolvulus, an ocymum, and, in a word, any tuberous
esculent root. Lada, a generic name for pepper, seemingly de-
rived from the common black pepper, is applied, with distinctive
epithets, to many plants used as food having an aromatic and
biting quality. Jaruk is a generic term for the citron family ; and
the word, with an epithet for each, is equally applied to the citron,
the orange, the lemon, the shaddock, and the lime. Arimau, or
rimau, is the royal tiger, but applied, with an epithet, to all the
feline animals of a large size. The Malay name for a rat is
tikus, but it is equally so for a mouse, for there are no separate
popular names to distinguish these familiar objects, except the
epithets large and small. Ular is the sole name for a snake or
serpent, but under this generic term are included probably
fifty species, each with its epithet or trivial name. Simgai is a
river, but applies equally to a brook or a streamlet ; and I am
not aware that any river in any Malay country has a specific
name. Rivers go by the name of the chief countries they pass
by or through, as Sungai-Siyak, the river of Slack ; Suugai-
Indragiri, the river of Indragiri. Thus one river may have
many names. Batu, a stone, is at once a stone, a rock, a pebble,