THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. Si 



itu ini jikalau sepcrti suatu 



But though their spelling- appears at first sight so peculiar, it 

 must be remembered that according" to the rules of Arabic or- 

 thography these words could not be spelt in any other way, ex- 

 cept that perhaps JS^- might be spelt J^>- but it will be 



noticed later on that only one weak letter appears to have been 

 used in any word, and that therefore, the ivatt being required to 

 form the final diphthong- au, the alif which would otherwise be 

 inserted to mark the stress has been omitted. 



It is interesting to note that the Dutchman van Elbinck, 

 who with his own hand copied portions of the Cambridge MSS., 

 adhered rigidly to the Arabic orthography of the originals from 

 which he was copying, but when left to his own unaided genius 

 in writing out a list of Malay words with their meanings in 

 Dutch, he followed the more natural method of spelling to which 

 the Malays have now attained, as will be seen from the following 

 examples taken from his vocabulary, dated 1st June, 1604: — 



diiak 



(lira 



paha susu 



hati jari 



bahu 



gig* 



bidu ap 



jfi 



^ 



V y.y. 



d\* lSj^T 



ytu 



& 



)* J 



At the present time the use of iiual wau and ya has become 

 almost universal, and many Malays would be quite unable to 

 read the words given above if they were spelt thus. 



2. In modern Malay, for the sake of legibility, a final alif 

 is usually written in such words as bawa, ara, etc. In the Arabic 

 system of orthography, the sound of the short final a as it is pro- 

 nounced in most Malay words is represented merely by the 

 vowel fathdh placed over the preceding consonant ; the addition 

 of alif would indicate a lengthening- of the vowel. The number 

 of Malay words, however, which have the long* a sound in the last 

 syllable is very small, the following being a few of them : — 



11 



Ida 



tret 



sela 



Lra 



depa 



% 



I; 



^_ 



X 



Uj 



