Malay language

“ The essential point to remember is that the true Malays—who call themselves Orang-Maláyu, speak the standard but quite modern Malay language, and are all Muhammadans—are a historical people who appear on the scene in relatively recent times, ages after the insular world had been occupied by the Mongol peoples to whom their name has been extended, but who never call themselves Malays. ”

“ In fact, as a rule, every community that is under one rajah, and this is generally but one village, has its own peculiar dialect, which is so different from the dialects of every adjoining village, that all are obliged to learn Malay in order to carry on any trade or hold any communication with their nearest neighbors. The bahasa is never a written language, and appears to be constantly changing, for, at the city of Amboina, the natives have completely lost their dialect since the foreigners settled among them, and now can only speak with each other in Malay. ”

“ Just as an insight into the early history of our own nation may be obtained by analysing the component parts of the English tongue, and assigning to each of the languages which have contributed to make it what it is their due proportion of influence, so, by resolving the Malay 5 language into its separate elements, of which native, Sanskrit, and Arabic are the chief, and by examining the words contributed by each, it is possible to follow with some approach to historical accuracy the successive advances which the Malay people have made on the path of civilisation. ”

“ Instruction derived from books must be supplemented by constant practice in speaking with Malays—not with Malay-speaking Asiatics of other nationalities—before idioms can be mastered. Until some facility in framing sentences according to native idioms has been attained, and it has been perceived how shades of meaning may be conveyed by emphasis, or by the position of a word in the sentence, the European will find it difficult to convey his ideas in Malay, even with a considerable vocabulary of words at his disposal. ”

“ Malay is the lingua franca of the Straits Settlements, and in the seaports a number of Portuguese and Dutch words have been incorporated with it.
The Malays can hardly be said to have an indigenous literature, for it is almost entirely derived from Persia, Siam, Arabia, and Java. Arabic is their sacred language. They have, however, a celebrated historic Malay romance called the Hang Tuah, parts of which are frequently recited in their villages after sunset prayers by their village raconteurs, and some Arabic and Hindu romances stand high in popular favor. ”

“ If there be any tongue through which they can understand each other, it is the Malay of Malacca, to which the nobles” (rajahs and capalas) “have lately addicted themselves since the Moors” (Arabs) “have resorted to them for the clove.” The Malays and Javanese probably visited these regions long before the Arabs; and they, and not the Arabs, were the people who first taught these natives the Malay language.
From Wakasihu I continued during a violent rain-storm along the south coast to Laha at the mouth of the bay of Amboina, determined to cross the bay and reach home that night, if possible. ”

“ Jantan and betina are also applied vulgarly to persons. If an apparent exception is found in such words as putra, a prince, and putri, a princess, derivation from a foreign language may be suspected. The inflexion in the word just cited is due to the rules of Sanskrit grammar.
Declension.
There is nothing in the Malay language which corresponds with the cases of a Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit noun, which are formed by changes of termination, or of a Hindustani noun, which are formed by postpositions. In Malay the cases are expressed, as in English, by prepositions:—
To, ka, kepada, sama. ”

“ The immigrant Chinese, who are called Sinkehs, are much despised by the Babas, who glory specially in being British-born subjects. The Chinese promise to be in some sort the commercial rulers of the Straits.
The Malays proper inhabit the Malay Peninsula, and almost all the coast regions of Borneo and Sumatra. They all speak more or less purely the Malay language; they are all Mohammedans, and they all write in the Arabic character. Their color is a lightish, olive-tinted, reddish brown. Their hair is invariably black, straight, and coarse, and their faces and bodies are nearly hairless. ”

“ Moreover, it is soft and melodious, rich in expression, poetical in idiom, and simple in structure—a language almost without grammar and yet of immense vocabulary, with subtle distinctions and fine gradations of thought and meaning; a language that sounds in one's ears long after Tanah Malayu and the coral islands and the jungle strand have sunk into hazy recollection, just as they once dropped out of sight behind one's departing ship.
Malay is written in the Arabic character, which was adopted with Mohammedanism, probably in the thirteenth century. ”

“ Unfortunately for the purity of the dialect spoken at the British settlements in the Straits of Malacca, the majority of the domestic servants there are foreigners (natives of India, Chinese, Javanese, &c.) , who seldom speak Malay well, either as regards style or pronunciation. It is assumed that the student aims at something more than clothing foreign idioms with Malay words, and he should be on his guard therefore against the errors of people of this class. ”

“ The island of Keffing, near the east extremity of Coram, is probably here alluded to.
[20] The Malay language is the Lingua Franca of the entire Indian Archipelago, but it is only generally understood in those places which enjoy some commerce. The natives, who reside in the mountains, and those who have no communication with strangers, speak only a dialect of their own. ”

“ Ideas are conveyed in Malay in a much less concrete form than in the civilised languages of Europe, and what is lost in accuracy and distinctness is partially compensated for by brevity.
Why say kasih sama sahaya (lit. “give to me”) , in imitation of the English give me, or the French donnez-moi, or the German geben sie mir, in all of which the pronoun is expressed, when a Malay would simply say bahagi-lah, give, or bawa, bring? ”

“ Malay is called a poor language, and so it is, but not so much so as is often imagined, certainly not as far as its vocabulary is concerned. That it is often unable to furnish us with words for abstract ideas is a deficiency which it has in common with all languages of the Indian Archipelago, or rather with all races who have not yet risen to the height of our civilisation and development. ”

“ It is not too much to say that any one aiming at a thorough knowledge of the language, literature, and history of the Malay people should commence his task by learning Dutch.
Malay is the language not of a nation, but of tribes and communities widely scattered in the East, and is probably spoken with greatest purity in the states of Kedah and Perak, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. It is spoken in all the states of the Peninsula, in Sumatra, Sunda, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Flores, Timor, and Timor Laut, the Moluccas, and the Philippines. ”

“ He has had thirty years' experience in the East, mainly among Malays, and has brought not only a thoroughly idiomatic knowledge of the Malay language, but a sympathetic insight into Malay character to his present post. He understands the Malays and likes them, and has not a vestige of contempt for a dark skin, a prejudice which is apt to create an impassable gulf between the British official and the Asiatics under his sway. I am inclined to think that Mr. Low is happier among the Malays and among his apes and other pets than he would be among civilized Europeans! ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that the Malay passive is confined to the written language; it is of common use colloquially among Malays, but, probably because it offers certain difficulties of construction, it is little understood and seldom employed by Europeans in the Straits of Malacca.
“He did not, or would not, accept it,” would be vulgarly rendered dia ta’ mahu tĕrima; but it may be more elegantly translated tiada-lah di-tĕrima-nia, “It was not accepted by him.” ”

“ As a language Malay is easily learned and has much to repay for so doing. It is full of wonders and surprises—among other things is the natural home of euphemism, where a spade is called anything but a spade. For instance, to die is beautifully expressed in Malay as a return to the mercy of Allah. The language is decidedly rich in poetical expression and imagery. A neighbor is one whom you permit to ascend the ladder of your cottage, and your friend is a sharer of your joys and sorrows. ”

“ In Java, Sumatra, and other islands eastward in which Malay is spoken, the pronunciation and character of the language are much influenced by the other languages current there. Malay is only spoken in perfection in places where the natives speak no other tongue. ”

“ The language is not ennobled by having been the speech of men who have made their mark in the world’s history. The islands of Indonesia have never startled the Eastern world with an Akbar, or charmed it with a Hafiz or a Chand. Receptivity, not originality, is the characteristic of the Malay races. But the importance of Malay, when the traveller heads eastward from the Bay of Bengal, has been recognised by Europeans since the sixteenth century, when Magellan’s Malay interpreter was found to be understood from one end of the Archipelago to the other. ”

“ Most of them have learned to speak Malay, though many know only their own primitive language, and when their three numerals, na-nu, nar, and nê—one, two, and three—have been used, fall back for further expression of arithmetical ideas on the word Kĕrpn, which means 'many.' For clothes they wear, the narrow loin cloth, fashioned from the bark of certain trees, which only partially covers their nakedness; they are as shy as the beasts of the forest, and never willingly do they quit that portion of the country which is still exclusively inhabited by the aboriginal tribes. ”

“ In Malay literary compositions there is great diversity in the manner of spelling many words. The accentuation of the spoken dialect differs so much from Arabic, that it is difficult, even for native writers, to decide when to write the long vowels and when to leave them out. This is the point in which diversity is most common.
Every European author who writes Malay in the Roman character has to decide on what system he intends to render the native language by means of our alphabet. The Malay alphabet has thirty-four letters, so it is obvious that ours will not accurately correspond with it. ”

“ The aboriginal dialect, prior to the admixture of Sanskrit, must have been but the poor vocabulary of men hardly raised above savage life. The purely native element in Malay furnishes all the necessary terms to express the physical objects surrounding men leading a primitive life in the forest, and all that has to do with their food, dwellings, agriculture, fishing, hunting, and domestic affairs. ”

“ The Arabic element in Malay is not accurately determinable, for new expressions are constantly being introduced.
A sketch of the Sanskrit element in Malay is all that there is space for here.
A careful classification of the principal Sanskrit words which are found in Malay helps to indicate what must have been the condition of society when the Aryan came into contact with the islanders of Sumatra. It shows, independently of other proof, that Hindu colonisation must have 6 gradually introduced the Malay races to institutions, ideas, pursuits, and wants to which they had hitherto been strangers. ”

“ The student should divest himself of the expectation that sentences may be formed in Malay on principles of construction which govern composition in European languages. An elementary knowledge of Malay is so easily acquired that a learner soon begins to construct sentences, and the tendency, of course, is to reproduce the phrases of his own language with words of the new one. He may thus succeed in making himself intelligible, but it need hardly be said that he does not speak the language of the natives. ”

“ Of course they are not expected to speak the Malay language fluently on leaving college, but they know a good deal of it when they land here, and are expected to know more before they have been long in Java. If they are not able to converse easily in Malay by the end of a couple of years, they are liable to be sent home. This makes them study hard, and renders them far more useful than if they could talk only in Dutch.
"You see how it works," he continued. "The Dutch officials can talk and write in their own language with very little fear that the natives can understand a word ”

“ From a literary point of view it will doubtless tend to settle the language and to give an uniformity to the various dialects of Malay, an object which the original projectors claim to have had in view. Its influence can scarcely fail to be considerable on the written language. ”

“ The fisher-folk use many kinds of nets, which they manufacture themselves. Sails, paddles, oars and punting-poles are all in use.
Malay Language and Literature
The Malay language is a member of the Malayan section of the Malayo-Polynesian class of languages, but it is by no means a representative type of the section which has taken its name from it. The area over which it is spoken comprises the peninsula of Malacca with the adjacent islands (the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago) , the greater part of the coast districts of Sumatra and Borneo, the seaports of Java, the Sunda and Banda Islands. ”

“ Every European in all the Netherlands India speaks Malay. It is the only language used in addressing servants; and all the European children born on these islands learn it from their Malay nurses long before they are able to speak the language of their parents. Such children generally find it difficult to make the harsh, guttural sounds of the Dutch language, and the Malays themselves are never able to speak it well; and, for the same reason, Dutchmen seldom speak Malay as correctly as Englishmen and Frenchmen. ”