OCCASIONAL NOTES. 14] 



Occasional Notes. 



Dialects of the Malay Peninsula. 



I have been engaged for some time pastin an attempt to collect 

 and compare the various dialects of the Wild Tribes of the 

 Peninsula and shall be much indebted to anyone who will fur- 

 nish me with fresh material on the subject, with a view to its 

 being embodied in a forthcoming publication. Any vocabularies, 

 grammatical notes, specimens of sentences with literal (verba- 

 tim) translations, and even lists of personal names, would be 

 welcome, if accompanied by a clear statement of (1) the name 

 of the tribe to which they refer : (2) its location (district and 

 state, and approximate position on the map) and, if possible, 

 (3) a short description of its physical characteristics. 



I venture to appeal to members of the Society, or their 

 friends, who may have collected such information, but have not 

 the leisure or the inclination to work it up themselves, to assist 

 me in this way in the work of collating these dialects. Much 

 valuable material remains unpublished and is ultimately lost 

 because men, who have been at some trouble to collect it, keep 

 it back with a view to completing it with additional matter 

 which they eventually have not time to collect. 



I [am particularly in want of specimens of the aboriginal 

 dialects of the Negri Sembilan and Pahang, but any information 

 relating to the aborigines of the Peninsula will be most welcome. 



While on the subject of dialects, may I venture to draw the 

 attention of the members of the Society to the importance of 

 accurately recording the various dialects of Malay which are 

 spoken in the Peninsula. Apart from a few scrappy notes about 

 the pronunciation of certain letters, practically nothing has 

 been done in this department. There are now, however, in 

 most districts of the Peninsula, Europeans well qualified by a 

 more than adequate knowledge of standard Malay, and if each 

 of them were to compile a record of the local peculiarities of 



