766 ON THE ALPHABETS OF THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
w. y. Besides these there is the aspirate which always follows a 
vowel, and never aspirates a consonant. The vowels are 6 viz., a. 
a. e. i. o. u. The dipthongs are 2 viz. ai and au, but have no cha¬ 
racters, being expressed only by their elements. 
With the exception of an initial a, the vowels are not considered 
substantive letters, but viewed as mere orthographic marks, or as the 
Javanese express it “ the clothing” of the letters, that is, of the con¬ 
sonants. The mark of the vowel a is placed over the consonant, of 
e before it, of i above and to the right of it, of o, which is a double 
one, part before and part after it, and of u under it. 
The initial vowel a, standing alone has its own proper sound, but 
as just stated, it is considered a substantive letter, and when <£ cloth¬ 
ed,” as the Javanese express it, with the mark of any of the other 
vowels, it becomes such vowel, but as an initial letter only.* The 
application of the vowel marks to the consonants always implies that 
the vowel is annexed to, and never that it precedes the consonant. 
Every consonant is a syllable, in which the vowel a. annexed, is 
^understood, and thus far the Javanese alphabet is syllabic, a charac¬ 
ter common to it with all the alphabets of the Archipelago. There 
must, of course, be some contrivance for eliding the vowels, and 
this is rather of a cumbrous nature. At the eml of a word it is 
done, by an appropriate orthographic character, but in the middle of 
one it is effected by a set of new consonant characters, two of which 
are in the same parrallel with the proper consonants and the rest 
placed below them. The presence of these indicates that no vowel 
precedes them. The letters h, r and the aspirate which I express 
by the roman letter h, when at the end of a word or syllable pre¬ 
ceded by a vowel, have distinct and appropriate characters. 
The liquids of the Javanese language are b. r. w. and y., and 
these alone coalesce with other consonants. The letter r, when 
doing so, having a peculiar character for the purpose, with another 
when following a vowel and closing a syllable. In all, no fewer 
than 50 characters, including indispensibie orthographic marks, are 
necessary towaids writing this language, independent of 8 capital 
letters, and some syllabic abbreviations, forming a system very com- 
* The initial a, it is to be remarked, has been mistaken by European 
writers for a mild aspirate, and expressed, consequently, by the letter h. 
I fell into this error myself, and I find that Messrs Roorda and de Groot in 
iheir excellent grammar and vocabulary of the Javanese have done the 
same thing. We owe the correction oT this mistake, and the true mean- 
inf, first to Col. Lowe and after him to Baron William Humboldt. 
