A dictionary of the Malay tongue, as spoken in the ... - Sabrizain.org

VI
PREFACE.
ihc INIalay is the principal vernacular tongue ufed by the people who in-
habit that vafl region and chain of illands comprehended between ninety-
three and one hundred and thirty-five degrees of Ealt longitude, a fpace
of about two thoufand t\A o hundred and t\\ enty miles ; and extending
from foiu-teen degrees North to eleven degrees of South latitude, com-
prehending twenty-five degrees, about one thoufand fcven hundred and
forty miles.
The inhabitants of this immenfe group of illands are fuppofed to have
proceeded originally from the peninfula of ISIalacca ; and of this there
can be little doubt ; fince it is the neareft continent, from which the
iflands proceed in a regular and conftant progrefiion, all over the fouth-
ern and eaftern feas, as far as New Guinea.
With regard to the religion of the Malays, they are now INIohammc-
dans, although they feem formerly to have been mere Pagans, for there
is not to be found in their language any word m hich fignifics God, or
An"-cls, or Prophet, or Church, or Devil, except what has been bor-
rowed from the Arabic, whence they received many other words. Hence
it is, namely, from the Korau^j, that they received their alphabet, ex-
cepting a few peculiar founds which the Arabs had no charader to deli-
neate. Exclufive of the words borrowed from the Arabic, there are fe-
veral from the Perfian and Hindooftanee ; as, for Wheat, Bread, &c.
articles not growing or made in their own country, they received the
name, together with the article, from the diftrid whence it came.
Mr. BowREY acquaints his readers, that by nineteen years' continuance
in the Eaft Indies, and that time wholly fpent in navigation and trading
in mofl: places in thofe countries, and much of that time in the Malay
countries, Sumatra, Borneo, Bantam, Batavia, and other parts of Java,
by his converfation and trading with the inhabitants of \a hich places he
•icquired fo much of the jMala}' language as enabled him to negociate his
bufinefs, and converfe with the natiA-es without the afiiftance of a preva-