Brandstetter's Indonesian Linguistics, 

 Translated by C. 0. Blagden 1 . 



Eeviewed by E. 0. WlNSTEDT. 



In Malacca in the year 1825, on his mother's side from the well- 

 "known family of Xeubronner, there was born van der Tuuk, who 

 wrought a Copernican change in the study of Malay comparative 

 philology. Malacca has been the mother of much important Malay 

 literature, of the Sejarah Melayu, the Hang Tudh, and the works 

 of Munshi Abdullah: and then it was the birth-place of this great 

 ■ Indolog ' van der Tuuk, who has gone without honour in his own 

 place but found it in the pages of the " Encyclopaedia of the 

 Netherlands Indies." We do not enshrine the careers of our 

 .students of Malay in an encyclopaedia; so, I should like to record 

 here, that it was four years at Jasin, which inspired Mr. Blagden 

 with his enthusiasm for Malay linguistics and so led to his trans- 

 lating the work under review. 



This translation of Brandstetter's essays was badly wanted. 

 Even to-day, how many British students of Malay are aware of the 

 Copernican change wrought by van der Tuuk in Malayan philo- 

 logy? How many readers of this journal realize that Crawfurd's 

 theories on the subject are no whit more valuable than his dictum 

 to a learned society in Great Britain that whatever else Australia 

 might produce, it could never breed sheep! How many admirers 

 of the " Journal of the Indian Archipelago " know that Logan's 

 Tibeto — Annam synthesis is no more fruitful or valid than that 

 of Anglo-Israelites who find in the British the lost tribes of Israel ! 

 How many of us have appraised speculations on the syllable ~bu, 

 bun, or bung in " words conveying an idea, of roundness," to be as 

 idle and valueless for scientific philology as Malay surmises that 

 4 Sumatra ' is derived from semut ray a or sama utara ! 



Maxwell printed his excellent " Manual of the Malay Langu- 

 age " in the early '80s ; his introduction need not have been de- 

 faced by obsolete and untenable views, if he had read van der 

 Tuuk's " Outlines of a Grammar of the Malagasy Language " 

 printed in the " Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great 

 Britain" in 1865 (and reprinted in "Essays relating to Inde- 

 ed hin a *' in 1887.) That essay should have been a point de repere 

 for English students of Malay philology as it has been for Dutch. 



i 'An Introduction to Indonesian Linguistics' being four essays by Ken- 

 ward Brandstetter, Ph. D., translated by C. O. Blagden, m.a., m.e.a.3. : 

 published by the Royal Asiatic Society, London (7s. 6d.). 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 76, 1917. 



