SO THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. 



But the following- words ending in a diphthong are spelt 

 with final wait and ya in every case in which they occur in these 



MSB:— 



argkau atau bagai berchrai birau hai harau hijau jikalau halau 



kerbaa limait pvisai ravibai. rantai rantatt sttrgai tajau 



We iind however that the scribe who wrote MS. G. had a 

 strong prejudice in favour of final ivau and ya, even in words 

 which do not end in a diphthong, for he writes : — 



hi bnani biidi chuchit hart least uri lembu mentri ma$eli nafiri 



negri pri j>ntri sakti sendiri sri bahru 



iS^> iSS <4j** iS*-*" cJL/.-^- ifs* $jh\ 



But he also spells liari without the ya, and all other words 

 of this kind are spelt without the ya as aku, hati, lain, kembali, 

 mergampu, tetapi, etc. 



The Leiden MSS. E. and I)., which were written at the end 

 of the 17th century, contain five of such words written with 

 final wan or //(/, and F., which is also of a later date, contains 

 three. In all the other MS'S. the only instances are kati, which 

 is found once, and negri, which is sometimes spelt with the ya 

 and sometimes without, and a few names of places in MS. C. 

 which being* unvowelled would hardly be recognized without 

 the final weak letters. 



It should be remarked that some of the words given above 

 are spelt in a way which would be quite inexplicable on any 

 other supposition than that they were originally vow T elled. and 

 these peculiar spellings are just the ones which never vary in 

 any of the MSS. and are still in use at the present day, as for 

 instance : 



