THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. 99 



Whether the Dutch scholars of the present generation have 

 universally accepted van de Wall's dictum in regard to the 

 change of accent in derived words, I am unfortunately not in a 

 position to know, the Library here not being- very well supplied 

 with the latest Dutch works on the Malay language, but as far 

 as I am able to discover, the grammar of Qerth v. Wijk, pub- 

 lished in 1893, is now considered the best Dutch work on the 

 Malay language. This author is in entire agreement with van 

 de Wall, for on page 40, para. 90, he writes : " The original, 

 " natural accent (of the root word) is usually retained when the 

 " word takes a suffix, e. g\, bandirg, bandirgan ; kiimpol, Ihinpolan ; 

 " dapat, mendapati ; lempar, meleinparkan. A nd the phenomenon here 

 " presents itself, that if the accent is not very easily distinguishable 

 " in the root vvord, it sometimes comes out clearer in the derived 

 " word, e. g., bergis, kabefgisan." 



After quoting from van de Wall part of the passage which 

 we have given above, Gerth v. Wijk adds: "The tendency 

 ,k to change the position of the accent more or less is chiefly 

 '•' noticeable, as it seems to me, in words which have the a sound 

 " in the last syllable ; such a pronunciation, however, as kuda- 

 kt nya from khda, pada-nya from pada, whereby the first syllable 

 ,k of the root entirely loses its accent, which falls wholly upon 

 " the second, as is the case with kata-nya,* can only be attribut- 

 " ed to European-Javanese influence ; one never hears it from 

 " the Malay." 



We shall see later on that van Wijk is probably correct 

 in attributing to Javanese influence this mistaken idea about 

 the change of the accent to the penultimate in all derived words. 

 It seems necessary, however, before going into that question, 

 to inquire first of all which are the w r ords in the Malay language 

 that actually do undergo a change of accent. In order to 

 make an independent investigation of this subject I have 

 written out a list of derived words and have caused them to 





" of a word does not change its position on the addition of the particles lah. 

 '• kah and tah. From the spelling of Abdullah it would appear that this is 

 •• also the case in the Malay of Malacca." 



f Where van de Wall and van Wijk came across this pronunciation of 

 kuta-nya I cannot imagine. The Malacca and Johor pronunciation 

 certainly gives an accent identical with kuda-nya. 



