68 PHNANG .MALAY. 
both a’s being long. In Penang the letter r though not rolled is 
pronounced in a peculiar gurgling manner at the back of the throat 
except it be a final when it is pronounced with a steely ring which 
often makes it difficult to distinguish from a final & which as else- 
where is always enclitic. 
Ayer “Water” is thus pronounced as if it were ayak “a sieve ;” 
nyior “a coconut” as if it were spelt nytok ; bochor “ leaky ” as if 
it were spelt bochok; déngar “to hear” as if 1t had been déngak ; 
ajar “to teach” as if it were spelt ajak “to invite.” Apa khabar? 
“ What’s the news? How are you?” is often heard as Apa habak 
the initial kh berg changed to h for assonance in conjunction with 
the alteration of the sound of the final r to k. Words ending in 
the letter 7 but having 2 as the penultimate letter on the other 
hand are pronounced as if the final syllable were tak and not ir. 
Pikir, “to think” becomes ptkiak. 
asin. samid.7 i pasiak. 
Kaku, “a file 7 5 kikiak, 
Hampir, “ near” es hammak. 
Gambier,’ gamer"). gambiak. 
Another pecuharity of Penang pronunciation is the indis- 
tinct utterance of ultimate syllables ending in s which are 
shortened and articulated quickly, resulting in the letter s being 
sounded as if it were th, so that béras “rice” sounds like bérath ; 
pédas,* pungent ” as pédaih; lékas, “ quickly ” as lékath and atas, 
“above ” as ataih. Similarly bagus, “ fine” is pronounced baguth ; 
bungkus, “a bundle” as bungkwth and mampus, “to die” as 
mampuih: whilst words ending in is merely change the s- into h; 
tulis, “to write” being pronounced as tulth; baris, “a line” as 
barih: kéris, “a dagger” as kérth: and chéngis, “ crosslooking ” 
as chéngth. 
2. The alteration of a final J into 2. 
One of the most puzzling features of the Penang dialect is the 
substitution of an 7 for a final 1, whereby even common words 
appear strange under their new guise, and in a few instances have 
to be recognised from the context as being different to the words 
similarly pronounced but spelt differently ; instances in point being 
bantal, “a pillow ” which is pronounced bantai and is lable to be 
mistaken for bantai, “to thrash, to slaughter” and tangkal, “a 
charm” pronounced tangkai and liable to be confused with tangkat, 
“a stem.” In those cases where the penultimate letter is 7 the 
sound of the final 7 does not become 7 as usual but is elided and the 
sound of the penultimate 7 is changed to e so that katil, “a bed- 
stead ” is pronounced kate. 
The following list gives the majority of common words ending 
in / and their pronunciation. 
Jour. Straits Branch 
