dSO OS THE I^ANGUAGES AND XITEftATURE 



guage appears to be a corrupt derivative. The lan- 

 guage of the interior, however, or the Basa-dalam 

 Jama, has a close and intimate connection with San- 

 scrit, and expresses the simplest objects and ideas by- 

 vocables which seem to differ no farther from the 

 Sanscrit than in the correct pronunciation necessarily 

 produced by the use of a less perfect alphabet. The 

 only Javanese that I have met, who could speak the 

 Basa-dalam Jawa, was not able to write the charac- 

 ter ; yet I perceived, in forming a short radical 

 vocabulary, that he used many Sanscrit words for 

 common objects, which are not in any dialect of 

 Malayu. 



The alphabet of Jazoa, is peculiar, and has no re- 

 semblance in the order of position to the Deva nagari. 

 The number of characters are twenty, and these are 

 varied by four vowels, e, i, u, o, but the real num- 

 ber of vocalic sounds is considerably greater. The 

 Javanese character is written from right to left. The 

 alphabet has been exhibited with considerable accu- 

 racy by Le BiiUN, and also by Reland; and it ap- 

 pears to have attracted the attention of the learned 

 Hyde, as an " Alphabetum Bantamense' was found 

 amongst his Posthumous papers, which had been 

 written for him by the Ambassador of the king of 

 Bantam. 



Various ancient inscriptions and monuments are 

 said to exist in the interior oi Java, one of which was 

 seen by Thun BERG, at Paditidis, near the bkie moun- 

 tains ill the interior of the island, which consisted of 

 eight hnes and a half, engraved on a stone pillar, 

 about two feet in breadth. The characters seemed,, 

 to him, to be written from right to left, and no per- 

 son hajd Jaeen able to decypher them. 



