THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. 83 



fakir kvru/ islam jawab kitab maidcm miskin 



These words are pronounced by the Arabs with the stress on 

 the last syllable, but the Malays, though retaining this spelling, 

 put the stress on the penultimate, where it is found in the great 

 majority of Malay roots. There are quite a number of word* 

 in the Malay language which have the stress upon the final syl 

 lable, and in many cases this final syllable which bears the stress 

 is a closed syllable, but the long vowel sound which the Arab 

 gives to the words quoted above is never heard in a Malay 

 word, it is therefore not to be expected that the Arabs would 

 teach the Malays to write the quiescent weak letter in such 

 words as sebot, renorg, prarg, dras, bring, etc. As a matter of 

 fact we never find the weak letter in such words in the old MSS.* 

 though in modern Malay these words are frequently written 



and we now even find such forms as the following, where the 

 stress is distinctly on the penultimate : — 



ekor habis menargis sal-it sayur tan j org tulus tikus 



The nearest approach to the long- vowel sound in a closed 

 syllable in Malay, is to be found in the two mono-syllables 

 pun and dan, and it is a remarkable thing that these two 

 words are invariably written with the weak letters wau and alif 

 respectively in all of our old MSS. and are so written up to the 

 present time. Robinson in his " Malayan Orthography " rejects 

 this method of spelling pun and dan, which he considers ought 



to be spelt -J and -p; the evidence of the old MSS. is, 



* The spelling Z^j on p. 116, line 12, R. A. S. Journal Str. Br. 



No. 31 will be found on reference to the photographic reproduction of MS. 

 A. to be a misprint. 



