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

68 A GRAMMAR OP' THE MALAY LANGUAGE.
or a gem. For gold, for silver, for tin, for iron, we have native
names; but there is no word in Malay for metal or mineral.
The names bestowed on metals introduced to the knowledge of
the islanders by strangers show the principle on which such
names are given. Tambaga, a word of Sanskrit origin, is
copper, and tambaga-puti is zinc ; tiraah is tin, and timah-itam
is lead; the first-mentioned word meaning, literally, "white
copper," and the last " black tin." The word bulu expresses
alike hair, feather, quill, or down. The word piiun, a tree, is
equally a shrub or any large plant. For herbs or smaller plants
the only words to describe them, as a class, are romput, grass,
and dawun, a leaf. There is but one word, kulit, to express
skin, pelt, leather, husk, shell, rind, bark ; and but one word,
buwah, for fruit, berry, apple, and nut. Tliere is no word for
corn, except biji, seed, and that is Sanskrit. In the names of
particular colours the Malay is even copious; but the generic
word colour, warna, is Sanskrit, and there is no native one.
For show or external appearance the only word is rupa, and it
is Sanskrit. In a higher class of abstractions most of the words
are taken from the Sanskrit and a few from the Arabic, as from
the first, manah, the mind ; budi, the understanding ; chita
and rasa, perception ; kala, masa, kutika, bila, time ; usya and
dewasa, age, life; baliya, puberty; chandra, date ; maya, illu-
sion ; loka, region, place ; bala, the people ; and manusya,
mankind.
We may contrast with the poverty now described, the copious-
ness,—even the redundancy, which prevails when ideas are
described in concrete. Although there be no specific distinct
terms for the generic words tree and herb, the parts of a tree or
plant are given with competent minuteness, as urat, a root
fibre; akar, the root; pardu, the crown of a tree; taugkai,
stalk or haulm ; batang and tunggal, stock or trunk ; chabang,
a branch ; daan and taruk, a twig ; tukul, tunas, and gagang, a
shoot or sprout; dawun, a leaf; bunga and kam])ang, a flower
or ])lossom ; kutub and kinchub, a flower-bud ; buwah, fruit.
Most of these words are often used in a figurative sense through-
out the language. As to specific plants, independent of those
that are classed, as already described, the Malay vocabulary is