144 TRANSLITERATION OF MALAY. 
ed Zama length of time. 
39 Wau, 0,0, as theoin nose and the win truth. 3 tolak, 
to push ; oa gina, quality, use. 
i¢ Ya, 6, i, as the @ in fete and the double e in thee. 3» beda, 
difference ; (g~ bind, wite. 
¢ 
Ain, ‘a, ‘e, i, ‘u. This vowel conveys a deep and some- 
what nasal sound which must be heard to be understood ; examples : 
yes ‘umur, life, age; jae ‘akal, mind, intelligence ; als ‘tlmu, science. 
These are always long. A short vowel is not written. In 
Arabic indeed it may be denoted by what are called vowel-points 
placed above and below the consonants, but vowel-points have 
been generally adopted in Malay, and the short vowels are left to 
be supplied by the reader like vowels in our ordinary short-hand. 
To shew how completely the use and the accentuation of the 
vowels in Arabic differ from Malay, to which language nevertheless 
the Arabic alphabet (with some additions) has been applied, it is 
only necessary to examine a passage of Arabic transliterated in the 
Roman character, e. g., an extract from the Kur‘an or from any 
other book, or to hear it correctly read. 
The majority of the words, it will be found, end in open vow- 
els, and in pronunciation the long vowels are strongly accentuated. - 
A short e is of rare occurrence. 
Take a sentence of equal length in Malay; it will be remarked 
that most of the words end in consonants, the exceptions being 
generally words of Sanskrit or other foreign origin, in many words 
the nominally short vowels, namely those not written, will have 
equal value in pronunciation with those which are written, and a 
sound which corresponds closely with the short ein the English 
words belong, bereft is abundant. 
In writing Malay, therefore, the Arabic alphabet has to express 
sounds very different from those of the language to which it 
belongs. 
The short e in Malay is often “a distinct and peculiar sound, 
which has a separate character to represent it in the Javanese 
alphabet,”* but for which there is no particular sign in the Perso- 
* CRAWFURD, Malay Grammar, p. 4, 
