THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. 91 



is spelt JSy* in every case, the alif being perhaps omitted in 



the penultimate on account of there being already a weak letter 

 in the first syllable to form the diphthong' au. 



The following' are words of two or more syllables havino- 

 the weak letter in the penultimate, 



beniwja chilaka guru hanya ittt jalan kiting plihara suatu 



iSL &% °l'£ 'ov; 'j,\ 'JC T ^uf ;^i ' \~ 



Kerna is invariably spelt ^J& which would indicate that this 



word was at that time a three syllable word with the accent 

 upon the first syllable ; now it is sometimes pronounced as if it 

 were a two syllable word. 



(b) In derivative words formed by the juxtaposition of two 

 roots, the lengthening' weak letter is almost invariably found 

 only in the penultimate, being entirely omitted in the first of 

 the two words forming the compound, as : 



apabila hulubalarg suka-chita 



J*» ^U» ±S~ 



The same is the case in reduplications wherever the argka dua 

 is not used, as, 



dagarg-dagarg, mitdak-jnudakan, raja-raja 



6 



The omission of the weak letter in the first word in such 

 cases is undoubtedly phonetic, the stress being strong on the 

 penultimate of the compound. 



When, however, we come to the case of derivative words 

 formed by the addition of suffixes, we immediately meet with a 

 difficulty which, as far as my reading has gone, has never yet been 

 explained by any European writer, namely that when the suffix, 

 pronoun or other particle is added to the roor, the position of 

 the lengthening weak letter is changed, and is found in the 

 penultimate of the derivative word thus formed. For instance : 



