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

LITERATURE. 81
all drank, pledging each other jovially. The minstrels, with
sweet voices, sang and played, and those who were love-stricken
rose and danced, shouting, clapping their hands, and rejoicing
their hearts. All who partook of the wine became exceedingly
intoxicated. Some danced furiously,—some were in such a
condition as not to be able to recognise wives or children, wliile
others, unable to return to their homes, slept on the spot where
they had eat and drank.^^ This statement, it should be added,
is taken from a story which refers to events which were cotem-
porary with the arrival of the Portuguese in the waters of tlie
Archipelago, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, or
above two hundred years after the conversion of the Malays
of Malacca, to whom the narrative relates, to the Mahomedan
religion.
Pleonasm, or more justly tautology, is a frequent figure in
Malay composition. Generally, the object is to strengthen,
while, in reality, it weakens the sense. In verse, it is frequently
practised merely to complete a metre or secure a rhyme ; and
it seems often used in ignorance, or for an useless display of
acquaintance with foreign or infrequent words. When words
are employed in this way, they often form a compound. Mteh-
lasuh is composed of two words, both meaning weary; rindudandam
of two words, meaning equally, longing, pining for;
champur-bawur of two words, meaning alike, mingled. Pri is
the native word for state or condition, and /ml the Arabic,
making the compound pri-Aal. Asal and parmulaan are, the
first an Arabic, and the last a Sanskrit word, both meaning
beginning, although we frequently find them combined, as
a«al-parmulaan. Amba-saya is composed of two native words
for slave, and marga-satwa of two Sanskrit ones, for wild
beast ; but in these two last examples the compound words, it
should be noticed, form a kind of plural. Tipu-daya is composed
of two words, equally meaning trick or stratagem, and chita-
rasa of two Sanskrit ones, equally importing, thought ; tarlaluamat
is composed of two native adverbs, meaning very,
exceedingly; and buni-bahana is composed of a native and a
Sanskrit word, synonymes for sound or noise. Sarta-dangan
and sama-dangan are prepositions, meaning with, or along with.