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

Ixviii
DISSERTATION.
for the first time, the letter f, for which there is neither
sound nor character in any of the Avritten languages of the
Archipelago.
There are four languages in the immediate vicinity of the
Javanese, which in substance and character are much allied
to it ; the Sunda, the Madura, the Bali, and the
allied to the Lombolv. The Sunda language is spoken over about
one-third part of the island- of Java, extending from
Cheribou across the island, down to its western extremity.
The country is more mountainous than that inhabited by the
Javanese and the people somewhat less advanced in civilisation,
but possessing the same amiable and docile character as that
nation.
The Sunda language is at present written in the Javanese
character, with the exception of two consonants, the dental d.
The ^^^ ^^^^ palatal t*, which it wants. It has, however,
Sunda
language.
^^^ additional vowel with a sound like the German o in
Konig, and to be found also in the Irish and Gaelic. It is
of frequent occurrence in the Sunda, but there is no written
character for it, its most usual representative being that which
I have distinguished as a, although the inherent a is also
occasionally converted into it in pronunciation.
The Sundas would appear, at one time, to have had a peculiar
written character of their own. This, however, is only inferred
from the existence in their country of inscriptions on stone in
an unknown character, bearing no resemblance to any alphal)et
of the Archipelago, nor traceable to any foreign one. Two of
these inscriptions are engraved in the Work of Sir Stamford
Raffles, one taken from a stone in the province of Cherbon,
and the other, from one at Pajajaran in the district of Bogor,
a place that was the capital of a State of some local conse-
quence in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Both are rude
in comparison with the inscriptions in the country of the
Javanese ; and it may be added that in the land of the Sunda,
there are few or none of those ancient monuments of Hinduism
so abundant in that of the Javanese.
The Sunda is of simple grammatical structure, like all
the other tongues of the Archipelago. Gender, number, and