200 SUGGESTIONS REGARDING A NEW MALAY DICTIONARY. 



Sumatra and Java, since the time that the shallow seas were 

 a continent, and a river of Sumatra ran between Singapore 

 and the Mainland ; the speech of a race that has been ima- 

 gined to be nearer perhaps than any other to the type from 

 which the greatly varying races in different parts of the 

 globe have diverged. Then the words of almost pnre Sans- 

 krit embodied in the language are interesting as pointing 

 to the nature and remoteness of the origin of the civilization 

 which was still flourishing 300 or 400 years ago, and of which 

 traces are still remaining. Again the Arabic element, the 

 vocabulary of Eeligion, is evidence of the work of those early 

 Mohammedan Missionaries, who have impressed their mark 

 so deeply on the national character, but of whose work there 

 is otherwise scarcely more record than there is of that of 

 the Sanskrit-speaking nobles who introduced the vocabulary 

 of dominion into the language far back in pre-historic ages. 



The language then being recognized as being in itself 

 worthy of study, and the study as taking a high place 

 amongst the objects with the prosecution of which this 

 society has charged itself, the importance of the question 

 which I have desired to introduce becomes apparent. For a 

 Dictionary is the shape, the only possible shape, in which 

 the great bulk of what is known in regard to a language 

 can be arranged. It is the form in which the original 

 student naturally and inevitably arranges his newly acquired 

 knowledge ; and it is the form in which knowledge acquired 

 by original research, is made easily accessible to successive 

 students. 



The original student observes and records to a great 

 extent, I fancy, in obedience to what one may call the 

 student's instinct, and without any very definite idea of the 

 use to which his records may ultimately be put, and in this 

 way I believe that it will be found that among those who 

 have given their attention to the Malay language of late 

 years a very considerable mass of information indeed has 

 been accumulated beyond what ha # s appeared in any of the 

 existing Malay Dictionaries. The information lies at present 

 scattered in private note-books, and if nothing is done to 

 collect and preserve it, the chances are that it will be lost ; 

 as no doubt many a valuable collection of similar notes has 

 been lost in the course of the 60 or 70 years that have elapsed 

 since the publication of Marsden's Dictionary. 



That it would be desirable to collect, collate, and verify 

 all such scattered notes as may be existing, and to record 



