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

•jst .A^ GRAMMAR OF THE
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. Hamzah
('), the most used by the Malays of all the orthographical
marks, is either an appendage of the moveable \, usually accompanying
its supplementary vowel, and consequently placed either above or below
that letter, or else it is the representative of or substitute for it, and in
its absencels placed in front of the preceding letter. So intimate indeed
is the connexion, in the opinion of grammarians, between the moveable
\ and this mark, that the former, being present, is made to assume the
name of hamzah, leses its proper efficiency, and, like a mere aspirate,
adapts its sound to that of the vowel with which the mark is accompanied,
as iJ\ ab, L_j\ ib, L»l ub or ob. This adaption, it is true, might take
place although the hamzah were omitted, and its use, when so applied,
seems to be no other than that of denoting the quality of this letter. In
this language, however, where the vowels are sparingly employed, the
chief use of the hamzah is to express (like our comma or apostrophe) the
elision of the \ moveable at the commencement of a syllable following
one of the three weak letters, 1, j, or ^ quiescent ; and also, but not
uniformly, following a consonant rendered mute by jesm ; which two
circumstances occ\ir most commonly in derivative words formed by an-
nexing particles (to be hereafter explained), as ^'^J.^ ka-semporm-an
perfection, ^J^}^ pe-karja-an performance, ^Jy:c^ ka-tantu-an certainty,
^^ ka-nantt-an expectation, ^\iJ^ peng-adup-an presence, ^^^ pcw^-
tbia- comforter, CJ^j-J^ meng-nsik to tease. It also supplies the elision
of \ before . or j^ at the commencement of a word to which the particle
i-i sa (a contraction of cjL salu one) is prefixed, as fj^—. s'orang a man,
for «^ i«C sa-orang ; as well as in the instances of j^yS^ makTijar for
>-.! iJiU inaka vjar and he said, and u:,,,^^!)^ marlk'ttu for (.^-ol lSjj^
77iar~ika tlu those people ; and, generally, wherever such elisions occur.
,
;
Sometimes