2% SOME NOTES ON THE SAKAI DIALECTS. 



used by the Sakai and bore the names which are now given 

 to the metal tools, of a similar shape, introduced by the Malays. 

 That the metal weapons were introduced by a foreign race is 

 proved by the fact that even to this day the pure Sakai have 

 no knowledge of the art of fusing metals. That the Malays 

 were the race which introduced these metal tools to the Sakai 

 is rendered more probable by the fact that the weapons for 

 which equivalents do not occur among the stone implements 

 bear Malay names as already stated. If this point is allowed, 

 there remains no alternative but to accept, what in my opinion 

 is an undoubted fact, viz., that the Malays invaded the Penin- 

 sula at a period when they had attained to a considerable 

 degree of knowledge in the useful arts, and their language 

 formed in its essential characteristics, and that, therefore, 

 the Malay language does not, and could not possibly, owe 

 anything ( saving perhaps the names of a few plants and 

 beasts ) to Sakai roots. 



In the above remarks I have had occasion to state that the 

 word Kapak, a hatchet, is adopted by the Sakai and becomes 

 Ka-pak as pronounced by the aborigines. Now this needs a 

 word of comment, as it has frequently been remarked with 

 surprise that the Sakai in adopting Malay words ending with 

 k, which letter is silent in the dialects of the Peninsula, always 

 give the silent k its full written value. Among other edifying 

 deductions which have been drawn from this simple fact, it 

 has been gravely argued that the peculiarity has arisen from 

 the fact that the Malays of the Peninsula at some former 

 period spoke as do their neighbours of Borneo and Sumatra, 

 who pronounce all final k's. That the Sakai learned it at that 

 period, and have never abandoned the practice, though why 

 they should have retained a peculiarity of pronunciation which 

 the Malays of the Peninsula have relinquished, was not 

 explained. 



Now, the true explanation of this matter really is that in 

 Sakai there are certain phonetic laws, of which the Sakai 

 themselves are unconscious, but which, so far as I yet know, 

 are employed without exception in all cases where Malay 

 words are adopted into Sen-oi. These rules can be stated, 



