108 THE EVOLUTION OF MALAY SPELLING. 



■pnganan pnasa-lah nipa-nya tambahan 



Vi§ 4.LAJ ;*Af«, ,-vtoVi 



;U9 ALy V9^ 



u-" 



It will be seen that the spelling of many of these words is 

 nearer to the spelling- of the 17th century than the new Spelling 

 Book, but the strong tendency to change the spelling in the 

 direction of the pronunciation is very evident. 



III. Is it possible to formulate rules which will fix the 

 spelling of Malay according to the modern native ideal, i. e., 

 legibility without vowel points? 



Undoubtedly it should be accepted as an axiom that the 

 IN Ea lays should continue to spell the common words as they have 

 been accustomed to do for centuries ; the spelling of these few 

 words is easily learnt, and it would now be next to impossible 

 to change them, e. g., 



ini itu jikalau kerna sagala seperti suatu deri-pada 



\ ^,\ jCr J& jC g/L- o^- a^j 



melainkav ketahui 



Also Arabic words, which have retained the original spelling 

 although the pronunciation has changed, should not now have 

 their spelling altered, as, 



dunia jaivab mi skin umur 



The first rule (1) would be, spell with final ivau and ya re- 

 spectively all words which end in any of the sounds e, i and ai or 

 //, o and mi. 



(2) All words ending in the a sound should be spelt with 

 final alif, except those words in which the last consonant is 



^ _ _. ■*£ jT Vj and a few common words such as 



