The linguistic relations are thus tabulated: The Malay tongue (balutsa jazci, incenjatelkau, to talk Malay) is probably a dialect of north Sumatra, of which Jawa is the old name. The old literary alphabet is the Kawi, probably formed from Pali, through either a Birmani or Siamese medium, about the 6th c., is neither crumpled like the one nor rounded like the other, but is easily recognized by its square and nearly identical letters. They are li, n, ch, r, k, d, t, s, w, 1, p, d thick, dh, y, ny, m, g, b, t thick, 1113:, rl, Ir. Vowel sounds: a, ce as in but, i, u as in boot, e as in cane, o, au as in now. Originally there were less than a dozen, with few or no aspirates or fricatives, but with the nasals. It is now written in a peculiar Arabic Neskhi, with 29 consonants and 8 vowel sounds. Other alphabets of ,the family are in Bugi, Manhkasar, Celebes, a new oue self-evolved by the Battaks, and one in the Phil ippines which resembles most a true Indian. Malay literature is rich, but little original.
There is a romantic and mythological poem, founded as usual on the Maliabharata; playa ftnd rnnitntirmq thr, Riarrtrap• Invp grinoN grul nnmilnr strintra simnln anti moct interesting of all; and tales from the Arabic and Sanskrit, including animal-myths, in which the jackal (Sans. srigala) plus the chief role. The Malay is not an isolated lan guage, yet it has not now the usual flexibility of an agglutinating one. nor must the reader ever expect in such a tongue the idea of either time or regimen; the verbs appear under aspects, as in Russian, and the nouns in relation, as in Hebrew. Roots, sup
posedly one syllabled, are enlarged by affixes, strong consonants being precessed and the three nasals inserted or substituted whenever possible. Vowel change plays a great rOle, evolving, with precession, sometimes a dozen words. Interior contraction is the rule. Doubling is carried to its limit; either of the whole word with or without modification; with initial change; with a play upon shnilar syllables like Basque, or with insertion of a preposition. Prepositions are partly- prefixed, partly suffixed, and it is not always easy to say whether they influence most, or exactly in what way , a noun or a verb, as in so-called Semitic participles. Much the same may be said of pronouns. On the whole, the language is easy, soft-sounding, with a nasal clang, and a great capacity for crude metaphor in plays upon words and expressions of complicated relations. Author ities: W. v. Humboldt, licher d. Kawi-spr. (1840, 3 vols.); Fr. Mueller, lieb. d. Ursp. d. Schrift d. mo2. Voelker, Bal. W. Akad (1865); Waltz, Anthropok d. Katurroelker (1869, 5 vols.); The Races of Han, Oscar Peschal (1876, 1 vol.); T he Malay Archipel., A. R. Wal lace (1869, 2 vols.); The Geog. Distrib. of .A.nimals, A. R. Wallace (1876, 2 vols.); The Science of Language, A. Horclacque (1877, 1 vol.).