BY SIDNEY H. RAY. 
51 
o and au. The final abrupt stop common in the languages 
is also written h, ch, k, and ’. 
The lists are also somewhat influenced by the nationality 
of the compilers, each of whom, Dutch or English, followed 
usually their distinctive spelling of Malay words. 
In native words in this section, and in the vocabularies, 
I have followed a uniform system, transcribing where 
necessary into the following alphabet:— 
Vowels-— a as in cart, e as a in came, i as ee in keen, o as 
in go, u as oo in mood. 
Short Vowels —a as in hat, e as in let, i as in pin, o as 
in not, it as in but. 
Long Vowels —a as in father, e as in there, o as aw in 
saw, u as German ue or it. 
Diphthongs— ai as i in fine, au as ow in now, eu as 
French eu in leur, oi as oy in boy. 
Consonants— k, g; t, d, ch, qh,j, y; p , 5,/, v ; m, n, ng, 
ngg , nj, ny ; r, l, w, y; s, z t sh; h. 
Of these, ch is sounded as in church; qh is softer, 
approaching ty ; j as in joke, y as in you, ng as in sing, ngg 
as ng in finger, nj as in injure, ny as ni in onion, z as in 
size, sh as in ash. The remainder as in English. 
The compounds mb as in amber, nt as in lent, nd as in 
lend, nch as in inch, ngk as nk in ink, are also found. 
A break in the middle of a word is shown by ’. At the 
end of a word ’ is an abrupt guttural stop, sometimes 
written h, and approaching k or the German ch in sich. In 
Sentah and Singhi this sound is written ch. 
In transcribing vocabularies from Dutch orthography, I 
have made the following changes :— 
English a for Dutch aa, ay for aij, au for ou, l for ie, iy 
for ij, d for oo, u for oe,j for dj, z for dz, y for j, qh for sj , 
ch for tj , ny for nj, nch for ntj, nj for ndj, ’ for kh final. For 
notes on Borneo Phonetics cf. A. Fokker in the appendix 
to ‘The Tidong Dialects of Borneo,’ by M. W. H. Beech 
(227). 
2. Syntax. 
So far as at present known, all the Borneo languages 
appear to belong to the isolating class. Grammatical 
relations are shown by word order, but, as in some iso¬ 
lating languages of the Asiatic continent, there is a limited 
use of particles. 
The usual word-order is : subject, predicate, object; but 
examples are too few for rules to be formulated. Examples : 
e 2 
