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

xxxvi Introduction,
extent would have been to incorporate the bulk of the language,
and to encroach on the province of an Arabic lexicon. The
number of Malayan words, on the contiary, that have been trans-
ferred into other tongues, is very limited ; yet the following have
obtained an extensive currency, not only in India, but in many
parts of Europe :
p-d', paddi, rice
j^b damar, dammar, a species of resin ; ^_>IS
in the husk ; uJL siigu, sago ; ^ bamhu, the
cane ; jJ^S kampong an enclosure, vulgarly compound ; c jjf go-
kris or creese,
do)ig, a warehouse, factory, vulgarly godovvn ; ^j^J
a weapon; ^^>^| ? ^j^ drang fdan a species of ape ; j.«l amuk and
^ll« meng-amuk, to run a-muck, to murder indiscriminately, to
engage furiously in battle.
That the Malays before the introduction of Arabic writing
possessed an alphabetic character of their own, can scarcely be
doubted, although we are now ignorant what that character
was ; for whilst so many tribes similarly circumstanced, in Su-'
matra, Java, Celebes, and other islands, have retained even to
this day their proper alphabets (all exhibiting traces of a Nagri
origin), it is not probable that this race alone should have been
entirely unlettered ; and we should rather conclude that, from
the period of their conversion, being taught to regard with con-
tempt, not only their habits of idolatry, but their ancient lite-
rature also, the Malays suffered the memorials of it to sink
into oblivion. If what was thus neglected is to be searched
for amongst the existing alphabets, the Batta seems to have
the fairest pretensions (from vicinity) to be considered as that
which gave place to the less convenient character imported from
Arabia.
Respecting the general style of the language, which will be
best understood from the examples to be given in the praxis, we
may