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

MALAYAN LANGUAGE. 5
To ihe foregoing, the Malays, in imitation of the Arabians, are ac-
customed superfluously to add the compound character t^i Ihrn-aliJ-
hamzah.
Beside the varieties of form nnd
comKi^-croii a65f^ exhibited, there
ire manv *.Liicr« '^ [^•c.v.tice, which those who are acquainted -with the
regular alpliabet will easily learn by the inspection of Malayan writings.
Some of them are produced merely from the haste, and others from the
capricious licence of the pen ; such as the use of an unindented slanting
stroke for the ^,
of a curved stroke or small semi-circle over and under
the letters instead of two points, or the sliglit inversion of the extremity
of the J, in place of the final ^ or a, •which latter is likewise, in several
shapes, mude to connect with the j i, the^ j, and thcj, but irregularly,
tlie general rule being, tliat all the letters of the alphabet are in them-
selves susceptible of connexion with those which precede them in the
same word, but that seven of them, viz. j\j j j 1, are incapable of
forming a junction with any following letter. It remains now to ex-
plain and exemplify more fully the powers of the several letters of the
alphabet.
I a when it occurs at the end of a syllable, or in the body of a word,
is always long, and has then, as in ^b bapa father, cijU mati dead, l:J^
kata to speak, the open sound of ci in the Italian and most other lan-
guages of the continent of Europe, but not generally quite so broad,
and coiTesponding perhaps more nearly with its sound in our woids
" brand, pant, harm, malice." Before ng however, it assumes one
somewhat broader, and in ^Ij bdiigun arise, 1[; langan the hand, jiU
wia7/^?7 dismay, is equivalent to that in our "want, warm, b.ill." At
the commencement of words it is short, unless when marked with the
C orthographical