MALAY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 97 
aspect. In Maxwetv’s Manual, pp. 120 sq., no less than six- 
teen terms are given to express the different kinds of striking, 
as many for the different kinds of speaking, eighteen for the 
various modes of carrying, &c. An unnecessary distinction 
has been made between High Malay and Low Malay. The 
latter is no separate dialect at all, but a mere brogue or jargon, 
the medium of intercourse between illiterate natives and Euro- 
peans too indolent to apply themselves to the acquisition of 
the language of the people ; its vocabulary is made up of Malay 
words, with a conventional admixture of words from other 
languages ; and it varies, not only in different localities, but 
also in proportion to the individual speaker’s acquaintance 
with Malay proper. The use is different as regards the term 
Jdadwi as applied to the Malay language. This has its origin 
in the names Great Java and Lesser Java, by which the me- 
dizval Java and Sumatra were called, and it accordingly 
means the language spoken along the coasts of the two great 
islands. 
Malay is probably spoken with greatest purity in the Rhio- 
_Lingga Archipelago and in the independent states of Perak 
and Kedah, on the western coast of the peninsula of Malacca. 
In other states of the peninsula (Johor, Trineganu, Kelantan) 
dialectical divergencies both as to pronunciation and the use 
of words have been noted. The most important and the most 
interesting of all the Malay dialects is that of Menangkabo 
(Menangkarbau) in the residency of Padang and in Upper 
Jambi, in Central Sumatra. It abounds in diphthongs, and 
prefers vocalic to consonantal terminations, thus changing fi- 
nal al and ar into a’, i and ir into tye, ul and ur into we e, as 
and at into e’, us into uwi ; final @ mostly passes into 0, so that 
for sudara and sudagar they say sudéro, sudégo ; the emphatic 
-lah is turned into-malah or malah ha ; > one pretixes / ber, per, 
tér are changed into bd, nd, ta, or bard, para, tard. Among 
other changes in pronuaciation may be noted wzrang for orang, 
mungko for maka, lai for lagi; they use nan for yang, na for 
hendak, deh tor oleh, ba@ for bagai, pai for pergi, ko’ for jikalau, 
&e. In some districts of Menangkabo (Palembang, Lebong) 
the Renchong character is in general use in writing this dia- 
lect, for which purpose it is far better suited than the Arabic. 
AS early as 1822 a small tract on the customs and traditions 
