

THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. 95 



" observations on the native pronunciation. So let us rather 

 " consider what others have said on the subject. In Marsden 

 " (Elout's translation p. 202) I only find the general statement, 

 " that the accent usually coincides with the long vowel, and 

 M falls by preference upon the penultimate, but without further 

 •'elucidation of peculiarities. De Hollander (Handkiding tot 

 " de beo.efen.ing der Mai. taal- en letterkunde, 2nd ed., Breda, 

 " 1 8 T> (5 ) says on the accent in words having- only one suffix 

 "(page 23, § 7), that they are pronounced both ways, either 

 k ' with the accent on the syllable which had the accent in the 

 "root (menddpatkun. karddjadn) or on the penultimate of the 

 " derived word (mendapdtkan, karajddn), and nothing further. By 

 " Werndly (Mai. Spraakkunst, Amst. 1736) the subject is treat- 

 " ed more fully (p. 45 et seq.\ and in the following manner, 

 " namely that the suffixes kan, i, an, ku, mu, nya always cause the 

 " accent to change its position to the syllable immediately pre- 

 " ceding them, whether that syllable be open or closed ; that 

 "the same thing takes place before kali, tah, la/i, if a vowel, 

 " diphthong or h precede them : while on the other hand, if 

 "another consonant precedes one of these three suffixes, the 

 "accent shifts to the preceding syllable or remains im- 

 " changed at will (sambot-lah or sdmbot-laJi) ; and that 

 kk the change of accent results in the change from lono- 

 "to short vowel and vice versa, except when the final 

 k " consonant meets the initial consonant of the suffix, as 

 "jalankan. In the new edition of Werndly's grammar bv 

 " Angelbeek (Batavia 1823, p. 38) it is only stated in general 

 " that in words of two or more syllables, whether they be roots, 

 " or compound or derived words, the accent falls usually upon 

 "the penultimate, and that 'the syllable on which the accent 

 " falls must naturally be pronounced longer than the others.' I 

 " do not know how much reliance can be placed upon the testi- 

 kt mony of these writers on such a point as this ; certainly under 

 " the most favourable circumstances they can hardly outweigh 

 " the dictum of Mr. van de Wall ; but their rule, as regards the 

 " cardinal point, seems to me to find such strong support, on the 

 " one hand in the analogy of the Javanese language, and on the 

 " other in the indications given by the spelling of Malay in the 

 kk Arabic character, that even the dictum of Mr. van de A Vail. 



