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

74 A GRAMMAR OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE.
Sanskrit was introduced into their language, the Malays are
wholly ignorant. The fact, indeed, of its existence at all, as an
element of their tongue, is only known to a few of them,
through Europeans. Some remarks on the subject will be
found in the Dissertation.
The Arabic words used in the Avritten language are such as I
have before described them ; but, in fact, any number may be
introduced at the will or caprice of the writer, with the cer-
tainty, however, that most of them will not be understood by
the general reader,—and often, indeed, not even by the writer
himself. The same thing is well known to be done in Persian
and Turkish, as Sir William Jones long ago observed,—and,
indeed, was done by ourselves with Latin, some three centuries
ago. But the actual number of Arabic words incorporated in
the Malay, and in popular use, is very trifling, and probably
does not exceed forty or fifty. No composition, whether prose
or verse, if of any length, exists without some admixture ot
Arabic, in which, however, the INIalay only resembles the Persian
and Turkish languages.
The Persian words most probably found their way into Malay
along with the Arabic, and this necessarily leads to the belief
that some, at least, of the adventurers, who, themselves or their
descendants, propagated the Mahomedan religion in the islands,
came from the shores of the Persian gulf, a locality where both
the Arabic and Persian languages are spoken. At all events, they
are of considerable standing, for I find them in the vocabulary
of Pigafetta. A few of them are of popular use, as kawin,
marriage, and piilita, a lamp ; but none of them are essential.
Of Telinga or Talugu words, which are most frequently com-
mercial terms, traces are also to be found in Pigafetta's collec-
tion. The Portuguese words admitted into Malay mostly
express new ideas, and the softness of the language has allowed
of their ready adoption ; for it may be remarked that the sounds
of the southern languages of Europe approach far more nearly
to those of Malay than those of any of the three Asiatic ones
found in it. The first introduction of Portuguese words is
readily determined to the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The number of them which has been naturalised has probably