Spada. 



One of the first words that a visitor to Java or Sumatra 

 hears is " spada." It is, in the hotels of the Dutch Colonies, 

 the common call for a servant ; a person shouts " spada " in 

 the same way that in this Colony he shouts "boy" and in 

 the same curious way the servant, wherever he may be, shouts 

 back " tuan." The word is not a native one, and is not used 

 by the natives. 



The derivation usually given of the word is a corruption 

 of two Malay words " siapa ada" (is anyone there?). 



I do not know however whether any one has suggested 

 that the word dates from, and is a survival of, the days of 

 British rule in the island now under the Dutch flag. Such 

 however is probably the case. The use in the Bengal Presi- 

 dency of the call "koi hai" (is anyone there?) is so well 

 known that a civil servant of that Presidency is generally 

 known as " Qui-hai."* I suggest that " siapa ada " is merely 

 the translation of " koi hai " and that it was introduced by the 

 servants of the Honourable East India Company who had 

 served in Calcutta before they came further east. " Siapa 

 ada " certainly is not idiomatic Malay, and would not or- 

 dinarily be used by Malays in the sense in which, in this case, 

 " spada " is. 



Probably it is this very fact, quite as much as the open 

 vowel sounds of the syllables, that have led to its present cor- 

 rupted and contracted form. 



If my suggestion is correct, two curious facts are worthy 

 of note : first, that in India it is the caller and in the Nether- 

 lands Indies it is the person called that is known (in each case 



* It has even passed into the French language. 



In the " Correspondence avec sa famille" of Victor Jacquemont 

 therre is the following passage (Vol : II. page 308 :) 



" J'ai ru dans vos gazettes de Calcutta les clameurs de quoihacs 

 (sobiquet des Europeens Bengalis de ce cote) sur la chaleur." 



Jour, Straits Branch, R, A, Soc, No. 50, 1908, 



