MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 283 
of getting over that crucial test—the open semi-vowel sound, so 
much more common in Malay than in English. Both of these 
points are treated briefly by the Committee under paragraphs 3 
and 6 of their Report (containing 17 paragraphs altogether ) and 
the differences between the two methods are really summed up 
in the following statements :-— 
a. The Committee considers that (paragraph 3) “in Malay as in 
“ Chinese it is sounds and not letters that have to be represented.” 
The critic considers that (page 142) “there are two 
“objects to be kept in view: Ist to obtain a faithful 
“transliteration of the Malay character ; and 2nd to 
“clothe the words in such a form that they may be 
“ pronounced correctly by an English reader.” 
b. The Committee considers (paragraph 6) that as to the open 
semi-vowel sound (which the critic refers to as the sound which 
ean only be expressed in Arabic writing by the fathah) “no 
“ natural representative suggests itself, and that there will be the 
“least danger of misunderstanding if this sound be uniformly 
“expressed by the letter ¢, sound as in ‘lateral’ ‘considerable’ ””— 
e unmarked being devoted to the ordinary English sound as in 
Ten (English), Sendok (Malay). 
The critic proposes (page 147) that @ or e unmarked 
shall correspond with fathah ; and as to the ordinary 
English sound as in Sendok he omits to deal with 
it altogether. 
A good deal of his paper deals very ably with philological ques- 
tions, which lead him not only beyond the ground covered by our 
Report, but even beyond the principles of his own spelling system, 
as for example when he suggests :— 
a } Semin iy CEs ics) | Sembilan to mark its probable 
Sembilan, k (by his system) derivation from Sa-ambil-an (1). 
or Sambilan 
(1) As these sheets pass through my hands, I take the opportunity of 
adding a note or two. The word quoted is ses me This, according to the 
2 : 
system I proposed, may be rendered sambilan or sembilan, but the first is 
obviously correct, as shewn by the derivation. Sais more generally correct 
than se, in Malay, for the reason I have given. 
