AmRlGiNAL TfilBES: THE CENTRAL SAKAI, 
41 
vocabularies obtained from others and by Mr. Cerruti's 
accoimt of the same tribe. As I always found my 
Sakai to be telling the truth on such occasions, I see no 
reason to suspect him of inaccuracy in cases where his 
statements could not be verified. Moreover, lie was 
always consistent when asked the same question after 
the lapse of some weeks. With so extensive a voca- 
bulary — 2,500 words — consistency would be impossible 
if fraud was intended. True he was a ** tame *' Sakai ; 
he was proud of his knowledge of IMalay ; and while 
this fact lessened the possibilities of any misunderstand- 
ing of my meaning or of his, it also led him to show off 
his knowledge l>y interlarding his Sakai stories with 
Malay words and metaphors. But bo was not a 
Muhammadan, and the copiousness of his vocabulary 
will defend him against any suspicion that lie had given 
up his own speech for the tongue of the foreigner. 
His teaching was interesting also because it justified 
my fear that the information picked up by questioning 
casual aborigines was useless. It had been evident to 
me from the veiy first that Sakai bad an elaborate 
grammar and was not to be understood by translating 
the Lord*s Prayer or taking doAvn a few sentences as 
had often been suggested as a means of judging idiom. 
The language is difficult owing to its curious phonology 
and its " silent " final consonants. T can only describe 
the sound by saying that the first part of the word is 
pronounced harshly and jerkily,' w bile the final letter 
is often whispered. The suppressed final in Malay 
suggests the principle; though in practice Malay is 
simplified by the fact that a " silent " final is always h 
' The Sakai o is like 0 in "stock" or ''stork," never like the 0 in "etoke/' 
The e is also rather Juirah Uke the French ^, not 6, 
