THE LANGUAGES OP THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 223 
U, U, n. 
The canal is again narrowed and the vocal orifice is further 
contracted and a little advanced, so that it reachesjts maximum 
of length. The prolongation of the canal, by rendering 'this 
vowel the gravest of all, and L its contraction, by rendering, it 
liquid like the i, combine in it the qualities, of the opposite 
extremities of the vocalic scale. Hence this’vowel is perhaps 
the'most powerful of the whole. It is however too intense, 
and at the same time costs too much labial effort, to become 
the principal vowel of languages which might have derived 
their origin from the Castle of Indolence.* 
Mai. The letter wau, the v, m. dammah. Tbe long u is the firaple wau 
preceded by a consonant with the dammah. Jav. t. m. suku. __Bug, v, m. 
yawana. Bat. Y. m. harita. 
Nasal Towels. 
The nasal mark may be applied when required to any of 
the vowels. In the Malay of Malacca tbe a sometimes takes 
a faint nasal, but this is too slight to give it a distinctly 
nasal character. The Malay of southern Johore (including 
Singapore) is prone to nasal tones ; a final, as in saya , guna, 
is nasal. Some of the more isolated tribes, acquatic and 
inland, have strong nasal tones. These tones are not heard 
in the Javanese. The Bugis alphabet has a distinct nasal 
mark, afana , but the nasal is not strong. It approaches to 
that of Singapore. 
Elucidations of the Table of Consonants. 
The consonants are the sounds produced by obstructing 
and interrupting the passage of the breath. They may 
therefore be considered as an impeding, muffling and shut¬ 
ting in of the vowels, and their variety depends, like that 
of the latter, partly on the widening and opening of the 
vocal cavity by the vertical movement of the lower jaw, but 
chiefly on the flexile and mobile power of the tongue, which, 
by its changing position, extension and muscular force, 
modifies the form and size of the cavity through which the 
breath is forced, and acts as a perfect or imperfect valve. 
This last office is also performed by the lips. 
To understand the character of each consonant, the modi¬ 
fications which it is capable of undergoing, its affinities and 
transmutations, it is not sufficient to consider it as a mem¬ 
ber of one of the organic classes under which the Devanagri 
alphabet is arranged. All systems of classification which do 
not embrace the characters of an object in their totality are 
