NO. 47. — 1896.] MALAY, SINHALESE, AND TAMIL. 



233 



VII. — On the Malabar Characters. 



Moreover, the Malabar language, which, is written from left 

 to right in our manner, has fourteen vowels.* These are used, 

 just as among the Singalese, only at the beginning of the 

 words, for at the end and in the middle other letters which 

 take the place of vowels are joined to the consonants, as 

 will be clearly seen from the Malabar alphabet which we 

 have added in copper plate. The consonants are eighteen 

 in number, and if one compares their shape with the 

 Singalese character he will see that they agree in many 

 ways, but that the former rather follow a square form such 

 as is found in the Hebrew characters of the Sacred Codex, 

 and that the latter are really round and drawn out into elegant 

 and somewhat artificial forms. The names of the vowels as 

 well as of the consonants are expressed in nearly the same 

 method by the Malabars as by the Singalese, since both races 

 add to the sound of the letters a similar termination. Thus, 

 the Singalese call the vowel a, ajenoe ; i, ijenoe ; o, ojenoe ; 

 and to the consonants they add aino, saying when they 

 wish to indicate the first consonant k, kaino; so g, gaino ; 

 ng, ngaino, and so on. The Malabars form the names of 

 the vowels by adding the termination na (not jenoe as the 

 Singalese do), calling the first vowel a, ana; i, ina; o, ona. 

 To the consonants they add ana, saying kana,nghana, chana. 

 Whence the affinity of the two languages makes itself 

 manifest in this respect, for in other respects there is a 

 great difference, not only in the sound, but in the declen- 

 sions and conjugations. If any one wishes to pursue the 

 subject further let him not merely have recourse to the 

 works which Caspar d'Aguilar has put forth concerning 

 this language,! which are seldom met with, but let him 



* This is two more than Pope gives, one being 1 ai, which he gives twice 

 over, i. e., for each character bj which it is represented, and the other 

 aytham ° , which Pope gives as confined to poetry. Ueland transliterates 

 it by ac. 



f These works are not mentioned in the list of Tamil grammars given in 

 the introduction to Pope's Tamil Handbook. 



