REPORT ON MALAY STUDIES. 
32 
Malay dictionary based on Wilkinson’s Malay-English dictionary 
but containing many additional words, and a number of minor 
works, some of which I shall have to refer to presently. 
Pari passu with the issue of the “ Papers on Malay Subjects,” 
the Committee for Malay Studies undertook the publication of 
another important series, styled the “Malay Literature Series,” 
containing a number of Malay texts mainly printed in the Roman 
character. The population of the Peninsula is very cosmopolitan. 
Nearly half of it, in these days, is non-Malay. Yet Malay is the 
lingua franca of the country; everybody speaks it, more or less 
correctly, whenever it becomes necessary to communicate with a 
person of another race w r ho does not happen to know the speaker’s 
own mother-tongue. Europeans, Chinese of different dialects, In- 
dians of various provinces of India, Indonesians from the different 
islands of the Archipelago, and all other strangers, use colloquial 
Malay freely as a means of intercommunication. Now, for the 
last five centuries or so Malay literature has been written in the 
Arabic character, a script hallowed by religious prestige but ill 
adapted to the phonetic requirements of the language. There was 
of course no idea of suppressing the use of this script, but the 
Government felt that its exclusive use constituted a barrier to the 
exchange of knowledge which had to be surmounted. True, certain 
of the Government officials had always been required to master it, 
but the rest of the non-Muhammadan community declined to do so. 
Accordingly it was decided to issue a number of Malay texts in the 
Roman character, which is far better suited for the expression of 
Malay sounds than the very imperfect Arabic script. 
Moreover, without dropping the teaching of the latter, the 
study of the Roman script was introduced beside it into the Malay 
vernacular schools, where it lias been found to assist considerably 
in the acquisition of the power of fluent reading. In this matter 
we followed in the Peninsula the precedent set by the Dutch in 
their Indonesian dominions years ago. Although at first the an- 
cient prejudices against the use of the Roman character found some 
expression, no serious opposition was encountered, and the two 
scripts now subsist side by side without friction or difficult}' of any 
kind. While the study of Malay in the Arabic character is actively 
pursued in the schools, a number of text books in Roman script 
are also in use. Several of these, as well as others in the Arabic 
script, are from the hand of Dr. Winstedt, and one in particular, 
a history of the Malays in Malay, deserves special mention as an 
excellent introduction to the subject. 
From the starting of the “Malay Literature Series” in 1906 
up to the present time fifteen texts have been issued in it in the 
Roman character. These include both works that had been published 
before, such as the classical Sejarah Melayu and Hang Tuah 
and the modern writings of Abdullah bin Abdulkadir, and also 
various hitherto unpublished texts, both traditional and modern, 
as well as collections of riddles, quatrains, etc. In the editing of 
Jour. Straits Branch 
