254 ON THE ROOTS IN THE MALAY LANGUAGE. 
complete the complement of the tripthong, and causing a to 
take up its natural position between the sharp @ and the flat 
oe, * should be wanting, at any rate, it does not appear in the 
lexicon. This omission, however, does not occur in other 
cases; so, for example, they say soer of the rain falling on 
trees, also of the cable of an anchor as it glides swiftly through 
the hawse-hole; again, the word sar stands for water dropping 
upon hot iron, also fora stream of water forcing its way 
through an opening, as well as for a mat being drawn along 
the floor and a spear or javelin flying through a partition con- 
sisting of matting ; s7r (pr: seer) is the name for a pit of elder- 
wood at the moment of its being extinguished by the water 
coming into contact with it: again, we have poek expressive of 
a feeble explosion or report, such as would be occasioned by 
the bursting of a cocoa-nut falling from a tree, or an empty 
pail tumbling upside-down into the water; they apply pak to 
a book falling on its flat side, or toa table struck with the 
palm of the hand; pik (pr: péek) is significant of a small 
wooden box falling on the ground; and so forth. Taking 
ito account the individual effects of s and p, the former indi- 
cating a hissing, sibilant sound, and the latter, by virtue of its 
being a labial explodent, expressing the presence of a “ pop!” 
or “ bang!’ there can be no difficulty in recognising the part 
played by the vowel in reproducing a tone to coincide with the 
original sound. 
In fact, to become fully aware of this distinction, it is almost 
unnecessary to call in the assistance of such tones, since he 
who is acquainted with the Malay languages, has it clearly 
proved to him by numerous examples how the changes in the 
word indicate the flat, dull, -heavy, thick, coarse, and ereat as 
compared with ard opposed to the sharp, clear, light, thin, 
fine, and small. On a first reference to the Javanese oram- 
mar of Roor one will immediately meet with numerous 
illustrations of this. And, although tc is nut found as an 
indepe ndent word in the vocabulary, yet its existence, which is 
made evident by simple analogy, is clearly established beyond 
the shadow of a doubt, by its derivatives. From all these 
* ‘This peptone S| occurs in the English mw/y pronounced oo-ah-ce. 
