Notes on the Formation of Words in 
Malay and Cognate Languages. 
H. L. E. LUERING, PA. D. (Strassburg). 
Unlike the great majority of the better known Oriental 
languages the vernaculars of the Malayan family have not yet 
revealed the history of their growth and development. The 
Semitic, Persian, Indian and Chinese languages have not only 
preserved very early monuments of literature, which serve as in- 
fallible euides to the student, but we can follow their growth from 
step to step, from antiquity to the present day, without missing, 
as it were, a single foot-print in all the long journey. In this 
search for light on the origin and the roots of the language 
numerous sister-tongues have liberally added their testimony. 
Arabic literature and living speech step in where Hebrew tradi- 
tion leaves a breach, and both supplement, and are supplement- 
ed by, each other and the Semitic varieties of cuneiform and 
other inscriptions. So it is also with Sanskrit, ancient Persian 
and the language of the Zendavesta. I remember very well 
the time, when owing to the lack of a Persian or Zend Diction- 
ary I had to prepare my lessons in the Avesta and in the inscrip- 
tions of Bisuttn with the help of a Sanskrit Dictionary. This will, 
at least, show the great benefit philclogically derived from a 
comparison of cognate languages, even where the modes of writ- 
ing and the alphabets are radically different. 
In Chinese philology we have not only a literature going 
back—indirectly if not directly—to great antiquity, but we 
have also a record of the ancient sounds and signs used at an 
early date. These together with the comparison of numerous 
idioms and dialects, enable us to assign what at first appears as 
a motley of heterogeneous languages to their legitimate mother. 
In the Malayan family of languages we have no ancient 
monuments of literature, but we havea large variety of tongues, 
which may all be pressed into service to shed their scant 
light upon the history of the language. I call their contribut- 
R. A. Soc., No. 39, 1903. 
