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

24, A GRAMMAR OF THE
.v< medd or i\x« ineddali [''^) signifies extension, and is in like manner
applicable to 1, whose sound is thereby lengthened. Its use may be
thus considered ; that the pronunciation of the syllable requiring tv.o
alifs, one of them moveable or consonant, and the other quiescent, but
the rules of orthography not admitting of such a repetition of the letter,
this mark is placed over the one I, to denote at the same time the elision
and the extension of sound, as in ^.^1 at/er water, uJl api fire, J^\ akhir
last. But in Malayan words the long sound of \ forming a syllable at
the beginning, is commonly expressed by U ha^ with the soft or imper-
ceptible aspirate to support the supplementary vowel, as in ^^la }iabh or
abis to finish, j^^U. hari or art day, *jU) hayam or J\ ayani a fowl.
In some writings, however, we may find a second and smaller \ placed
beside the greater, which the grammarians affect to consider as another
form of mcdd, and name it i_a!l j^o medd 'alif. This smaller \ is also
employed by itself, and placed above the other characters, whose junc-
tion frequently excludes it from occupying that place which the greater
\ would hold in the line, as in ^^.*s^J for ^Ue-; rahmdn merciful ; but
this seems to be nothing more than a fancy of the penman, and to have .
no influence on the pronunciation. When placed over ^_s final, it implies
that the letter, in Arabic words, is to be sounded like 1, as in ^jjUi-
tdcila most high ; but the Malays, on the contrary, sometimes introduce
this lesser \ instead of applying fat-halt to the preceding consonant, in
order to produce the diphthongal sound of ai or ei, as in J^S'lS pakei to
wear, /jjf giilei a curry. Finally, the meddah is employed in abbre-
viations of a sacred or mysterious nature, where one, two, or more words
are represented by their initial, medial, and final letters, as * a for *LJ1