A Manual of the Malay language by Sir Maxwell William Edward (free reads .TXT) 📕

doubt, for the secondary place which we occupy in all researches connected with the language and literature of the Malays. To the Dutch their colonies in the Eastern seas are what our Indian Empire is to us; and with them the study of Malay, Javanese, Kawi, &c., takes the place of Persian, Hindustani, Tamil, Sanskrit, &c., which occupy our civilians in India. The extent and value of Dutch works on Malay subjects is, however, but little known to Englishmen in the East, owing to their general ignorance of the Dutch language. 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. Traces of it are found among the numerous Polynesian dialects, and in the language of the islanders of Formosa. Siam proper has a large Malay population, descendants mainly of captives taken in war, and the language is therefore in use there in places; it is found also here and there on the coasts and rivers of Anam and Cochin-China. No other language of the Eastern Archipelago is understood over such an extensive area, and it is the common means of communication between the numerous tribes and races of the Malay family whose languages and dialects differ.

Logan supposes that the earliest inhabitants of the Archipelago were tribes of Africo-Indian origin, who peopled the Eastern islands as well as the more accessible portions of the Continent, descendants of whom he recognises in the negro and quasi-negro tribes that are still preserved in some of the mountains of the Malay Peninsula, Siam, and Anam. To these succeeded immigrant tribes from Mid-Asia, by way of the Irawadi, whom Logan designates by the term of the Tibeto-Anam family, all the races and languages from Tibet to Anam being included under it. “By a long-continued influx this family spread itself over the Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Celebes; but its farther progress over the many islands to the north and east appears to have been checked by the older races. It was probably only by slow steps and by settling at many points that it gained a firm footing even in the western islands, and a long period must have elapsed before its tribes became so populous and spread so far into the interior as to enable them to absorb and destroy the earlier occupants.”2 The variety which exists among the languages and dialects in the region affected by these movements is thus accounted for by Logan:— “The languages imported by the Tibeto-Anamese settlers differed as did those of the natives, and the combinations formed in different places from the contact of the two families varied in the proportions of each which entered into them. But the structures of the native tongues had strong affinities amongst themselves, and predominated in all these new combinations.”3

The idea presented by this sketch of the origin of the aboriginal Malay language is that of a mixed dialect, borrowing something from the Tibeto-Anam languages (the influence of which would be more apparent in the western settlements), and gradually approaching the Africo-Indian forms farther east.4 “Lastly,” Logan supposes, “a later Indian influence, belonging to a far more advanced civilisation, flowed in a great stream into the Western Archipelago, and cut off that of the Irawadi, before its linguistic operation had made much progress.”5 It is to this epoch that we must ascribe the introduction of the Sanskrit element into the Malay language.

Malay is mainly dissyllabic, but there are not wanting evidences of a former monosyllabic tendency. The syllable bu, bun, or bung, for instance, occurs in a considerable number of words conveying an idea of roundness:—

Bu-lan the moon. Bu-lat round. Bu-ah fruit. Bu-yong a jar. Bu-tir a grain, globule. Bu-sar an arch. Bu-kit a hill. Bu-sut an anthill. Bun-tar round. Bun-ting pregnant. Bun-chit pot-bellied. Bun-tut. the buttocks. Bun-toh

a numeral affix implying rotundity (cf. lún, Burmese), used with such words as chin-chin, a ring; and kail, a fishhook.

Bung-kok hump-backed. Bung-kus a bundle.

Many others might be cited.6

Another characteristic list of words might be made, compounded with the monosyllable tang (which in Sakai and Semang means “hand”), and conveying an idea of seizing or holding.

Tang-an the hand. Tang-kap to seize. Tang-kei a stalk. Tang-gong to support. Tang-gal

to drop off (having left hold).

Tong-kat

a walking-stick, &c.

The history of the Malay people is to be discovered in the language itself, for no authentic records of pre-Muhammadan times exist. 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 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.

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 use of a Sanskrit word for “plough” seems to record a revolution in agriculture. The primitive cultivation of the Malays was carried on by clearing and burning the hill-sides (a system still largely adopted in native states where land is plentiful and timber valueless), and the cultivation of the wet ricefields of the plains, which necessitates the use of the plough, would thus seem to have been resorted to only after the arrival of the Hindus.

As soon as the analysis reaches moral ideas, or objects requiring some advance in civilisation, it is found that they are expressed by words of foreign origin. These are, for the most part, Sanskrit or Arabic. The latter require no notice here, for they are of comparatively recent introduction. For the most part, they consist of terms incidental to the ethical and religious teaching of the Muhammadans. 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 gradually introduced the Malay races to institutions, ideas, pursuits, and wants to which they had hitherto been strangers. Many of the incidents of commerce, most of the metals and precious stones, the pomp and ceremony of royalty, and the use of the elephant, are shown, by the Sanskrit nomenclature employed in describing them, to be of Hindu importation. From this it is not difficult to infer the primitive condition of a people to whom all these things were unknown. So, the Sanskrit names of many weapons indicate a period when the rude weapons of savage Malay tribes—blowpipes, spears, &c.—were supplemented by arms of a more formidable character, for which they were indebted to India. Other groups of words show, independently of other proof, that the Hindu religion was successfully planted among the Malays and flourished for a time, and that the monarchical form of government was introduced in Malay countries by Hindu settlers and rulers.

The word “rulers” is used advisedly, for the theory of Marsden as to the manner of the introduction of Hinduism seems to possess greater claims to general acceptance than that advocated by certain other writers, notably Leyden and Crawfurd. Crawfurd asserted that the Sanskrit words adopted in Malay came originally through the Hindu priesthood, and that the priests through whom this was effected belonged to the Telugu race, this, in his opinion, being the people who, commencing by trading with the Malays, proceeded to partial settlement in their country, and ended by converting them to Hinduism and introducing the language and literature of the Hindus. He entirely discountenances the idea that Sanskrit could have been introduced by a people of whom it was the vernacular language.7 He admits, however, that in Southern India Sanskrit was itself a foreign tongue; that Sanskrit has found its way into Javanese and Malay in a state of comparative purity, and not intermixed with Telugu; and that there is no trace whatever of any extensive settlement of the Telugus in the Malay Archipelago.

Marsden’s contention, on the other hand, points to Gujarat as the quarter from which Hindu civilisation penetrated to the far East, and to conquest as the mode in which the way was cleared for its introduction.8

Before proceeding to classify some of the Sanskrit words which are found in Malay, and to deduce any theories from their presence, it is necessary, in order to avoid misconception, to notice several difficulties which cannot be overlooked.

In the first place, it is not meant to be asserted that the Malays have obtained all the words enumerated further on direct from the people of India. All theories founded upon the presence of Sanskrit words in Malay must apply with equal force to Javanese, which contains a larger proportion of Sanskrit words than Malay. “Sanskrit words are found in greatest purity in the Javanese, and next to it in the Malay, their corruption increasing as we recede from Java and Sumatra.”9 It may be assumed, therefore, that in addition to the influence which Hinduism exerted among the Malays of Sumatra by means of direct intercourse with India, there was also a second source from which the Malays derived a great portion of their Hindu nomenclature, namely, the ancient Hindu kingdoms of Java.10

These remarks may be illustrated by reference to the fourth column of the lists of words which follow.

Again, some of the Sanskrit words in the following lists are synonyms merely, there being native or Arabic words, or both, in common use to express the same object.

In some instances, too, the words quoted are not often heard in the colloquial dialect, but occur in books to which in many cases they have been transplanted from Javanese romances.

All these circumstances seriously modify the possibility of drawing general conclusions from an analysis of the body of Sanskrit vocables found in Malay. The questions to be decided seem to be (1) whether it is possible that such a mass of terms for common objects (for they are by no means confined to words incident to the Hindu religion) could have been imported into Malay by any means except by oral communication with a Sanskrit-speaking people; (2) supposing that this could have been effected through some later Indian dialect, itself largely tinged with Sanskrit (as the Latin words in English came to us with the Norman speech), what dialect was this? Telugu, as Crawfurd thinks, Gujarati, to which Marsden inclines, or what?

It is in order to contribute to the settlement of such questions as these that a