The Comparative Philology of the Sakai 
and Semang Dialects of the Malay 
Peninsula—A Review. 
By C. 0. BLAGDEN. 
There has recently appeared in the Bijdragen tot de Taal- 
Land-en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indié a monograph * 
of some length on the Sakai and Sémang dialects, which may 
fairly claim to be the most comprehensive piece of work yet 
done in this connection and is therefore deserving of the 
attention of the readers of this Journal. It is the more interes- 
ting as being the first occasion for many years that a scholar of 
some standing in Europe has been attracted to the study of these 
dialects, and it will serve as a landmark for future collection 
and research in relation to his rather neglected subject. 
Never before have these dialects been submitted to the 
systematic comparison to which Professor Schmidt subjects 
them-in his paper. It has been his purpose to collate all the 
existing published materials and to see whether any sound 
inferences could be drawn from such a comparison. He has 
actually omitted very little, and that little is not of the first 
importance. The sources from which he draws are carefully 
enumerated: they include, besides the previous numbers ” of 
this Journal the works of Newbold °, Roberts, * De Morgan * 
and Vaughan Stevens’ as well as the vocabularies published 
by Klaproth * Tomlin," Low, ‘ Borie! and Maclay, * so that they 
comprise practically everything of permanent value that had 
. a Die Sprachen der Sakei und Semang auf Malacca und ihr Ver- 
haltnis zu den Mon-Khmér Sprachen, von P. W. Schmidt, S. V. D., 
Bijdragen, etc.,(’S Gravenhage, 1901) No. 52, ( 6e Volgr., Deel 8 ) 
pp. 399-583. 
6. Nos. 5, p. 129 e¢ seq; 8, p. 112 et seg ; 9, p. 167 et seq; 24, p. 
13 et seg; 27, p. 22 et seq; 29, p. 13 et seq; Seealso Nos. 1 p. 41 et seq; 
3, p. 113 et seq ; 33, p. 247 et seq. 
R. A. Soc , No. 39, 1903. 
