A grammar of the Malayan language, with an introduction and praxis..

XVI
INTRODUCTION.
word Jb dulam, signifying " a royal palace or court," and not,
as has been supposed by the author of the dissertation " on the
language and literature of the Indo-Chinese nations," from the
preposition dulam " in." From this misconception of the word
he was led to consider it as the " language of the interior," and
to frame, as its correlative, the term hhasa luar, to denote an
" exterior " or vulgar language of the coasts, which, although
the woids are intelligible, I can venture to say, does not exist
as a phrase. (See Asiat. Res. a^oI. x. p. 189.) The style of
courts is by no means imcommon in books, because the princi-
pal characters, both male and female, iiitroduced in romances
and heroic poems, are always of royal, if not of divine lineage,
and the language they speak, as well as that in which they are
addressed by their compeers and their attendants, must be suita-
ble to the condition of such personages.
The Lhasa haiigsawan or style of the politer classes of society,
does not in its general tenour differ materially from that of the
court, but is at the same time distinguished from it by some
expressions in the former applicable only to royalty, such as
li^ tltah or ju-o sahda for cj\^ kata to say, u-Lwj santap for ^^U
mdJcan to eat, jj>^ her-adu for jj^j tldor to sleep, c:,Xvo mangkat
or i_L& ilang for cijU miiti deceased, defunct.
The hhasa diigung, as the term implies, is that of merchants
who trade from port to port, whose language is simple in its
construction, and perspicuous, as their dealings require, but less
elegant and less grammatical than the preceding. It necessa-
rily admits the use of many foreign names for articles of mer-
chandise, such as \^Ai heldiiwa for veludo velvet, aAJL> sakelut
scarlet cloth, Jjj real a Spanish dollar. The language spoken
by European gentlemen may be considered as belonging to this
division ;