SUGGESTIONS REGARDING A NEW MALAY DICTIONARY. 201 



them in some permanent shape, will not I think be disputed ; 

 bnt as to what the exact shape and scope of the work shonld be, 

 there will naturally be differences of opinion, and it is npon 

 this point in especial that I am desirous of eliciting discus- 

 sion. Naturally one's first idea is to take up the work on 

 the largest and fullest scale, and produce a Dictionary which 

 should incorporate with our new matter the whole of what 

 has already appeared in the works of Marsden, Crawf urd, 

 Favre and others. But before embarking on a work of such 

 magnitude it is well to count the cost beforehand in money 

 and labour, lest we put our hands to a task we are unable to 

 carry through. My present impression is that instead of an 

 entirely new Dictionary, our work should take the form of 

 a supplement on appendix to Marsden's admirable work. In 

 this way the cost and labour of the undertaking would be 

 very greatly reduced ; and the method would have the 

 advantage of keeping our new work, which we cannot hope to 

 be perfect, distinct and separate, and so conveniently present- 

 ed for criticism and future revision. Then again as we cannot 

 expect the work to be perfect as far as it goes, so neither can 

 we expect that it will be complete and final. It would not be 

 advisable to let the work drag on indefinitely? in the hope of 

 producing a work which should contain the last word on the 

 subj ect. A moderate time, say a couple of years, should I think 

 be fixed within which the whole of our available material 

 should be worked up ; and if this were thrown into the shape 

 of a supplement to Marsden's work, the collation and 

 incorporation of the two might very properly, I think, be 

 left to our successors. 



Supposing then the form resolved upon for the work to be 

 such as I have proposed, it remains to consider the arrange- 

 ments by which the necessary materials would be most 

 conveniently collected and brought into shape, and here 

 there are several methods that obviously suggest themselves. 

 The first is to make a detailed comparison of the words 

 contained in the other existing Dictionaries with those given 

 in Marsden's, and prepare lists of those which do not appear 

 in the latter. This would of course be a somewhat laborious 

 task, but less so than would possibly be imagined it it were 

 undertaken by persons having a tolerably extensive acquain- 

 tance with the Malay vocabulary. To any one having such 

 an acquaintance there would be but little difficulty, I think, 

 in running down the pages of Crawfurd and Favre, and 

 putting a provisional mark against all the words in regard 

 to which it would be proper to look and see whether they 



