A remarkable instance of the extent to which the Malay language has been enriched by Aryan terms is to be found in their national or racial name. The origin of the wordMalayu(the native word from which we obtain our “Malay”) has been made the subject of some discussion by several authors. Some are disposed to trace it to the Sanskrit wordmalaya, while others prefer to regard it as a purely native word. These views are summarised in the following extract from the introduction to the Malay Grammar of the Abbé Favre:—“Some authors, and particularly Dr. Leyden, whose authority in this matter is of great weight, derive the wordmalayufrom the Tamilmalé, which means ‘mountain,’ whencemalaya, ‘chain of mountains,’ a word applied in Sanskrit to the Western Ghauts.“Marsden asserts that this opinion, being founded upon a mere resemblance of sound between the Sanskrit wordmalayaand the name of the Malay people, is not sufficient to justify this derivation.40“Nevertheless the opinion of Dr. Leyden has continued to command belief, and has been regarded as not altogether unfounded by M. Louis de Backer, who has recently published a work on the Indian Archipelago.41“Another theory, which has the support of Werndly,42is so far simple and rational that it seeks the etymology of this word in the traditions of the Malays and in books written by themselves. Thus, in a work which has the greatest authority among them, and which is entitledSulālates-salātin, orSejārat malāyu, the following passage occurs:—“‘There is in the island of Sumatra an ancient kingdom called Palembang, opposite to the island of Banka; a river flows there which is still called Tatang, into the upper portion of which another river falls, after having watered the spurs ofthe mountain Maha Meru (which Malay princes claim as the cradle of their origin); the tributary is calledMelayu, orMalayu.’ The meaning of this word is ‘to flow quickly’ or ‘rapidly,’ fromlayu, which in Javanese as well as in the dialect of Palembang signifies ‘swift, rapid;’ it has becomelaju,melaju, in Malay by the conversion ofيintoج, a change which is by no means rare in Malay, as it may be seen inيهوريandجهوري,43from the Sanskritayutaandyodi, and inجوريjehudi, from the Arabicجوتyehudi, &c.“Now the Malays, an essentially nautical people, are in the habit of settling along the banks of rivers and streams, whence it comes that a great number of their towns have taken the names of the rivers on or near which they are situated, such as Johor, Pahang, &c. In this way ‘the country situated near the river of which the current is rapid,’Sungei Malayu, would take the name ofTanah Malayu, and the inhabitants of this country (governed in those times by a chief named Demang Lebar Daun) that ofOrang Malayu, just as the inhabitants of Johor and Pahang are calledOrang Johor,Orang Pahang; and their language is calledBahasa Orang MalayuorBahasa Malayu.“The name ofMalayuthus applied to the people and to the language spread with the descendants of Demang Lebar Daun, whose son-in-law, Sang Sapurba, became king of Menangkabau or Pagar Ruwang, a powerful empire in the interior of Sumatra. A grandson of Demang Lebar Daun, named Sang Mutiaga, became king of Tanjong Pura. A second, Sang Nila Utama, married the daughter of the queen of Bentan, and immediately founded the kingdom of Singapore, a place previously known as Tamassak. It was a descendant of his, Iskander Shah, who founded the empire of Malacca, which extended over a great part of the peninsula; and, after the capture of Malacca by the Portuguese, became the empire ofJohor. It is thus that a portion of the Indian Archipelago has taken the name ofTanah Malayu, ‘Malay country.’“One of the granddaughters of Demang Lebar Daun was married to the Batara or king of Majapahit, a kingdom which extended over the island of Java and beyond it; and another was married to the Emperor of China, a circumstance which contributed not a little to render the name ofMalayuor Malay known in distant parts.”44This theory requires that we should suppose that a word of wide application, which is known wherever Malays have established themselves, is, in fact, a Malay word disguised in a form found only in Javanese and the dialect of Palembang. If the arguments adduced in support of it are to apply, we must first of all admit the very doubtful historical accuracy of theSejarahMalayu, from which they are drawn.There is a Malay word,layu, which means “faded,” “withered,” and it is only the exigency of finding a word applicable to a river that makes it necessary to look for a derivation inlaju, swift. In this or some kindred sense the wordlajuis found in Javanese, Sundanese, and Dayak; but why it should give its name, in the form oflayu, to a river in Sumatra, and thence to the whole Malay race, is not very obvious. A river named in consequence of its swift current would be called by MalaysSungei Laju, notSungei Malaju. Even if the derivation of Malayu frommelajuhad the support of the Malays themselves, Malay etymologies are not often safe guides. Not much, for instance, can be said in favour of the fanciful derivation of Sumatra fromsemut raya, “large ant,” which is given by the author of theSâjarah Malayu.45It is impossible to treat the story of Sang Sapurba, the first Malay raja, as historical. The name, “Maha-Meru,” sufficiently shows that we are upon mythological ground. The story is as follows:— Three young men descend from the heavens of Indra (ka indra-an) upon the mountain Maha-Meru,on the slopes of which they meet two women who support themselves by planting hill-padi. Supernatural incidents mark the advent of the strangers. The very corn in the ground puts forth ears of gold, while its leaves become silver and its stalks copper. One of the new-comers rides on a white bull, and carries a sword calledChora(Sansk.kshura, a razor)samandang-kini. They are received by the natives of the district (Palembang) and made rajas. He who rides the bull becomes king of Menangkabau, and the other two receive minor kingdoms.It is not difficult to recognise here certain attributes of the god Çiva, with which, by a not unnatural confusion of ideas, Muhammadan Malays, the recipients of the old traditions, have clothed their first raja.Maha-Meru, or Sumeru, on which are the abodes of the gods, is placed by Hindu geographers in the centre of the earth.Malayais mentioned in thePuranasas a mountain in which the Godavari and other rivers take their rise. The white bull of Sang Sapurba is evidently thevahanof Çiva, and the name of the sword bears a close resemblance tomanda-kini, the name given in heaven to the sacred Ganges, which springs from the head of Çiva. Most of the incidents in the story, therefore, are of purely Hindu origin, and this gives great probability to the conjecture which assigns a Sanskrit source to the wordMalayu. The Straits of Malacca abound with places with Sanskrit names. Not to speak of Singha-pura, there are the islands of Langka-wi and Lingga and the towns of Indragiri and Indrapura, &c. Sumeru (in Java), Madura, Ayuthia (in Siam), and many other names, show how great Indian influences have been in past times in the far East. May it not be, therefore, thatMalayaorMalayu46was the name by which the earliest Sanskrit-speakingadventurers from India denominated the rude tribes of Sumatra and the peninsula with whom they came in contact, just asJawiis the name given to Malays by the Arabs, the term in either case being adopted by the people from those to whom they looked up with reverence as their conquerors or teachers? According to this view, the introduction of a river,Malayu, into the story of Sang Sapurba is anex post factoway of explaining the name, inserted with this object by the native author of theSâjarah Malayu.If it be granted that the story of Sang Sapurba is mythological, it becomes unnecessary to follow any attempt to show that the name ofMalayureceived additional celebrity from the marriages of granddaughters of Demang Lebar Daun with the Batara of Majapahit and the Emperor of China! The contemptuous style in which Malay, Javanese, and other barbarian rajas are spoken of by ancient Chinese historians leaves but slender probability to the legend that an Emperor of China once took a Malay princess as his wife.47From this subject it is natural to proceed to another disputed etymology, namely, the origin of the wordJawi, which is often used by the Malays for the wordMalayuin speaking of their language and written character,bahasa jawimeaning Malay language, andsurat jawia document written in Malay. It is not necessary to go into all the various conjectures on the subject, which will be found in the works of Marsden, Crawfurd, Favre, and others.Jawiis a word of Arab origin, and is formed in accordance with the rules of Arabic grammar from the nounJawa, Java. Just as fromMakah, Meccah, is derived the wordMakk-i, of or belonging to Meccah, so fromJawa, Java, we getJawi, of or belonging to Java. When this name was first applied to Malays, the Arabs had not an accurate knowledge of the ethnography of the Eastern Archipelago. Without very strict regard to ethnical divergencies, they described all the brownraces of the eastern islands under the comprehensive and convenient termJawi, and the Malays, who alone among those races adopted the Arabic alphabet, adopted also the term in speaking of their language and writing.48As in Malay there are no inflexions to denote change of number, gender, or person, the connection ofJawiwithJawais quite unknown to the Malays,just as the second part of the wordsenamaki(sena-maki, senna of Meccah49) is not suspected by them to have any reference to the sacred city. There is a considerable Malay and Javanese colony in Meccah,50where all are known to the Meccans indiscriminately asJawi.Marsden devotes several pages of the introduction to his Malay Grammar to a discussion as to the origin and use of the expressionorang di-bawah angin, people below the wind, applied by Malays to themselves, in contradistinction toorang di-atas angin, people above the wind, or foreigners from the West. He quotes from De Barros and Valentyn, and from several native documents, instances of the use of these expressions, but confesses his inability to explain their origin. Crawfurd quotes these terms, which he considers to be “native,” and remarks that they are used by the Malays alone of all the tribes in the Archipelago. A much more recent writer characterises these terms as “Noms dont on ignore encore la vraie signification.”51The expression is not of Malay origin, but is a translationinto that language of an Arabic phrase. Instances of its use occur in the “Mohit” (the ocean), a Turkish work on navigation in the Indian seas, written by Sidi al Chelebi, captain of the fleet of Sultan Suleiman the Legislator, in the Red Sea. The original was finished at Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, in the last days of Muharram,A.H.962 (A.D.1554). It enumerates, among others, “the monsoons below the wind, that is, of the parts of India situated below the wind,” among which are “Malacca, Shomotora, Tanassari, Martaban, and Faiku (Pegu).”52TRANSLITERATION OF MALAY IN THE ROMAN CHARACTER.Malay is written in a character which has been borrowed from a foreign literature in comparatively modern times, and which but imperfectly suits its sounds. With the introduction of the Muhammadan religion, the Malays adopted the Arabic alphabet, modified to suit the peculiarities of their language.In Malay literary compositions there is great diversity in the manner of spelling many words. The accentuation of the spoken dialect differs so much from Arabic, that it is difficult, even for native writers, to decide when to write the long vowels and when to leave them out. This is the point in which diversity is most common.Every European author who writes Malay in the Roman character has to decide on what system he intends to render the native language by means of our alphabet. The Malay alphabet has thirty-four letters, so it is obvious that ours will not accurately correspond with it. It is open to him, if he wishes to obtain a symbol to correspond with every letter of the Malay alphabet, to employ various means to denote those letters for which we have no equivalents; or he may dismiss the native alphabet from his mind altogether, and determine to write the language phonetically. In a language, however,which abounds in Sanskrit and Arabic words, he should, of course, avoid the adoption of any system of spelling which would disguise the true origin of words of foreign derivation.Muhammadans from India or Persia introduced their own method of writing among the Malays. They wrote Malay in their own character (to the gradual supersession of any native alphabet that may have previously existed), and this became the alphabet of the Malays.It is now our turn to write Malay in our character. Is it sufficient to do this in our own way, as those did who introduced the Perso-Arabic alphabet, or must we also have regard to the mode of spelling adopted by the latter?In an elementary work like the present, it does not seem to be necessary to burden the student with a system of transliteration. The native character is not employed in this manual, and there is, therefore, all the less occasion for using special means for denoting peculiar native letters. It will be found that the mode of spelling Malay words adopted by Marsden has been followed in the main.53In this Introduction the long vowels (that is, the vowels which are written in full in the native character) are marked with a circumflex accent, but it has not been thought necessary to adopt this system in the body of the work.Sometimes vowels will be found marked with the short sign, ˘. This is only for the purpose of assisting the student in pronunciation, and does not represent any peculiarity in the native character.The vowels are to be sounded in general as in the languages of the Continent of Europe. Finalkis mute.The correct pronunciation of Arabic words is aimed at by Malays of education, and the European student should get the right sounds of the vowelainand of the more peculiar Arabic consonants explained to him.Introduction: Footnotes1.Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, p. 272.2.Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 311.3.Idem, p. 315.4.Journ. Ind. Arch., v. p. 569.5.Idem.6.These remarks do not, of course, affect foreign words, such asbumiandbujangderived from the Sanskritbhumiandbhujangga.7.Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertation xxxix., xliii.8.“Innovations of such magnitude, we shall venture to say, could not have been produced otherwise than by the entire domination and possession of these islands by some ancient Hindu power, and by the continuance of its sway during several ages. Of the period when this state of things existed we at present know nothing, and judging of their principles of action by what we witness in these days, we are at a loss to conceive under what circumstances they could have exerted an influence in distant countries of the nature here described. The spirit of foreign conquest does not appear to have distinguished their character and zeal, for the conversion of others to their own religious faith seems to be incompatible with their tenets. We may, however, be deceived by forming our opinion from the contemplation of modern India, and should recollect that, previously to the Mohametan irruptions into the upper provinces, which first took place about the year 1000, and until the progressive subjugation of the country by Persians and Moghuls, there existed several powerful and opulent Hindu states of whose maritime relations we are entirely ignorant at present, and can only cherish the hope of future discoveries from the laudable spirit of research that pervades and does so much honour to our Indian establishments.” —Marsden, Malay Grammar, xxxii.9.Crawfurd. See also Marsden, Malay Grammar, xxxiii.10.“The Hindu religion and Sanskrit language were, in all probability, earliest introduced in the western part of Sumatra, the nearest part of the Archipelago to the continent of India. Java, however, became eventually the favourite abode of Hinduism, and its language the chief recipient of Sanskrit. Through the Javanese and Malays Sanskrit appears to have been disseminated over the rest of the Archipelago, and even to the Philippine Islands. This is to be inferred from the greater number of Sanskrit words in Javanese and Malay—especially in the first of these—than in the other cultivated languages, from their existing in greater purity in the Javanese and Malay, and from the errors of these two languages, both as to sense and orthography, having been copied by all the other tongues. An approximation to the proportions of Sanskrit existing in some of the principal languages will show that the amount constantly diminishes as we recede from Java and Sumatra, until all vestiges of it disappear in the dialects of Polynesia. In the ordinary written language of Java the proportion is about 110 in 1000; in Malay, 50; in the Sunda of Java, 40; in the Bugis, the principal language of Celebes, 17; and in the Tagala, one of the principal languages of the Philippines, about one and a half.” —Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertationxlvii.Sed quæreas to the total absence of Sanskrit in the Polynesian dialects. Ellis’ “Polynesian Researches,” i. 116.11.A selection of words only is given. There are numbers of Sanskrit words in Malay which have no place in these lists.12.Unless the Sansk. rootlikh, to write, may be detected in the second syllable.13.Journal Royal As. Soc., Bengal, vi. 680; xvii. part i. 154 and 232; Idem, part ii. 62, 66.14.Malay Grammar, Dissertation vi.15.This is the derivation given in Favre’s Dictionary. Another fromsoḍha, (borne, undergone) might perhaps be suggested with equal probability.16.Asiatic Researches, iii. 11, 12.17.On the Traces of the Hindu Language and Literature extant among the Malays, As. Res. iv. See also, On the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations, Leyden, As. Res. x.18.The words in this column have been taken from the Malay and French Dictionary of the Abbé Favre. J. signifies Javanese, S. Sundanese, Bat. Battak, Mak. Makassar, Bu. Bugis, D. Dayak, Bis. Bisaya, Tag. Tagala, and Malg. Malagasi.19.Favre derivesabrakfrom the Arabic.20.J., S., and Tag.sila; S.silah, to invite; Bat.sila, a gift of welcome.21.J., S., and D.utara; Bat.otara; Bis.otala, east wind.22.Crawfurd’s Malay Grammar, Dissertation clxxxiii.23.J.mergu; J.sato; S.satoa; D.satua; Bat.santuwa, a mouse.24.Crawfurd has noticed the fact that the names of the domesticated animals are native, one exception being the goose, which, he thinks, may therefore be supposed to have been of foreign introduction (Crawfurd’s Grammar, Dissertation clxxxiii.). It must be remembered, however, that among the Hindus the goose is worshipped at the festivals of Brahma, and that, being thus in a manner sacred, its Sanskrit name would naturally be in use wherever the Hindu religion spread. Brahma is represented as riding on a whitehaṃsa.25.Perhaps a more plausible derivation is from the Tamulari-mâ, a male lion.26.J. and S.garuda; Mak.guruda.27.“Commeline had been informed that the Javans give the name ofMalatito theZambak(Jasminum sambac), which in Sanskrit is calledNavamalika, and which, according to Rheede, is used by the Hindus in their sacrifices; but they make offerings of most odoriferous flowers, and particularly of the variousJasminsandZambaks.” —Sir William Jones,As. Res.iv.28.Ainslie’s Materia Medica, Madras, 1813.Kananaoccurs in the names of several flowers,e.g.,kanana karavira, Plumieria alba.29.Perhaps a corruption ofnila-gandhi. Ainslie gives the Sanskrit name asjela-nirghoondi.30.J.nanas; S.kanas; Bat.honas; D.kanas; J. and S.balimbing; Bat.balingbing.31.Crawfurd, very likely correctly, derives this from the Portuguesebaluârte, a bulwark.32.Journ. Ind. Arch., v. 572.33.Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertation ccii.34.These two words must have been originally used by Malays in the sense which they bear in Sanskrit. “Unto the shoes of my lord’s feet,” or “beneath the dust of your majesty’s feet,” are phrases in whichpadukaandduliwould immediately precede the name or title of the person addressed. Being thus used always in connection with the titles of royal or distinguished persons, the two words have been taken for honorific titles, and are so used by Malays, unaware of the humble origin of what are to them high-sounding words.35.“The Javanese have peopled the air, the woods and rivers with various classes of spirits, their belief in which probably constituted their sole religion before the arrival of the Bramins.” —Crawfurd’s Grammar,Dissertationcxcix.36.“The Javanese consider all the Hindu gods of their former belief not as imaginary beings, but as real demons” (Ibid.), just as the early Christians regarded the classic gods, and attributed oracles to diabolical agency.37.J., S., Mak., D., and Bis.puasa; Bat.puaso.38.“Agamain Sanskrit is ‘authority for religious doctrine:’ in Malay and Javanese it is religion itself, and is at present applied both to the Mohammedan and the Christian religions.” —Crawfurd,Malay Grammar,Dissertationcxcviii.39.I have found both these words used separately and distinctly by Pawangs in the state of Perak. Raffles and Logan confused them. Journ. Ind. Arch., i. 309; History of Java, ii. 369. De Backer mentionsongonly. L’Archipel. Indien, p. 28740.Malay Grammar, Introduction.41.L’Archipel Indien, p. 53.42.Maleische Spraakkunst, door G. H. Werndly p. xix.43.The derivation ofjudi, gaming, fromdyuta(game at dice), seems to be preferable to that adopted by M. Favre (following Van der Tuuk), who refers it toyodi, a warrior.44.Favre, Grammaire de la Langue Malaise, Introduction, viii.45.Leyden’s Malay Annals, 65.46.Besides signifying a range of mountains,Malayahas the secondary meaning of “a garden.” If the term was applied originally in reference to the agricultural pursuits of the primitive tribes, it receives additional illustration from the name given to one of the women whom Sang Sapurba meets on Mount Maha-Meru, “Malini,” a gardener’s wife (Sansk.).47.See Grœneveldt’s Notes on the Malay Archipelago, compiled from Chinese sources. Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, xxxix.48.“Sawa,Jawa,Saba,Jaba,Zaba, &c., has evidently in all times been the capital local name in Indonesia. The whole Archipelago was compressed into an island of that name by the Hindus and Romans. Even in the time of Marco Polo we have only aJava Majorand aJava Minor. The Bugis apply the name of Jawa,Jawaka(comp. the PolynesianSawaiki, CerameseSawai) to the Moluccas. One of the principal divisions of Battaland in Sumatra is calledTanah Jawa. Ptolemy has both Jaba and Saba.” —Logan,Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 338.49.Senna(Cassia senna), as a medicine, enjoys a high reputation in India and all over the East. In Favre’s Malay-French Dictionarydaun sena-makiis translatedfeuilles de séné, no notice being taken of the last word; but Shakespear’s Hindustani Dictionary hassena makk-i, “senna of Mecca.”50.Burton’s Pilgrimage to Medinah and Meccah, p. 175.51.De Backer, L’Archipel Indien, li. (Paris, 1874).52.Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, iii. 545.53.In certain foreign words the hardkwill be found to be denoted by a dot under the letter, thus, ḳ; and the peculiar vowel sound represented in Arabic by the letterainis denoted by the Greek rough breathing ‘.
A remarkable instance of the extent to which the Malay language has been enriched by Aryan terms is to be found in their national or racial name. The origin of the wordMalayu(the native word from which we obtain our “Malay”) has been made the subject of some discussion by several authors. Some are disposed to trace it to the Sanskrit wordmalaya, while others prefer to regard it as a purely native word. These views are summarised in the following extract from the introduction to the Malay Grammar of the Abbé Favre:—
“Some authors, and particularly Dr. Leyden, whose authority in this matter is of great weight, derive the wordmalayufrom the Tamilmalé, which means ‘mountain,’ whencemalaya, ‘chain of mountains,’ a word applied in Sanskrit to the Western Ghauts.
“Marsden asserts that this opinion, being founded upon a mere resemblance of sound between the Sanskrit wordmalayaand the name of the Malay people, is not sufficient to justify this derivation.40
“Nevertheless the opinion of Dr. Leyden has continued to command belief, and has been regarded as not altogether unfounded by M. Louis de Backer, who has recently published a work on the Indian Archipelago.41
“Another theory, which has the support of Werndly,42is so far simple and rational that it seeks the etymology of this word in the traditions of the Malays and in books written by themselves. Thus, in a work which has the greatest authority among them, and which is entitledSulālates-salātin, orSejārat malāyu, the following passage occurs:—
“‘There is in the island of Sumatra an ancient kingdom called Palembang, opposite to the island of Banka; a river flows there which is still called Tatang, into the upper portion of which another river falls, after having watered the spurs ofthe mountain Maha Meru (which Malay princes claim as the cradle of their origin); the tributary is calledMelayu, orMalayu.’ The meaning of this word is ‘to flow quickly’ or ‘rapidly,’ fromlayu, which in Javanese as well as in the dialect of Palembang signifies ‘swift, rapid;’ it has becomelaju,melaju, in Malay by the conversion ofيintoج, a change which is by no means rare in Malay, as it may be seen inيهوريandجهوري,43from the Sanskritayutaandyodi, and inجوريjehudi, from the Arabicجوتyehudi, &c.
“Now the Malays, an essentially nautical people, are in the habit of settling along the banks of rivers and streams, whence it comes that a great number of their towns have taken the names of the rivers on or near which they are situated, such as Johor, Pahang, &c. In this way ‘the country situated near the river of which the current is rapid,’Sungei Malayu, would take the name ofTanah Malayu, and the inhabitants of this country (governed in those times by a chief named Demang Lebar Daun) that ofOrang Malayu, just as the inhabitants of Johor and Pahang are calledOrang Johor,Orang Pahang; and their language is calledBahasa Orang MalayuorBahasa Malayu.
“The name ofMalayuthus applied to the people and to the language spread with the descendants of Demang Lebar Daun, whose son-in-law, Sang Sapurba, became king of Menangkabau or Pagar Ruwang, a powerful empire in the interior of Sumatra. A grandson of Demang Lebar Daun, named Sang Mutiaga, became king of Tanjong Pura. A second, Sang Nila Utama, married the daughter of the queen of Bentan, and immediately founded the kingdom of Singapore, a place previously known as Tamassak. It was a descendant of his, Iskander Shah, who founded the empire of Malacca, which extended over a great part of the peninsula; and, after the capture of Malacca by the Portuguese, became the empire ofJohor. It is thus that a portion of the Indian Archipelago has taken the name ofTanah Malayu, ‘Malay country.’
“One of the granddaughters of Demang Lebar Daun was married to the Batara or king of Majapahit, a kingdom which extended over the island of Java and beyond it; and another was married to the Emperor of China, a circumstance which contributed not a little to render the name ofMalayuor Malay known in distant parts.”44
This theory requires that we should suppose that a word of wide application, which is known wherever Malays have established themselves, is, in fact, a Malay word disguised in a form found only in Javanese and the dialect of Palembang. If the arguments adduced in support of it are to apply, we must first of all admit the very doubtful historical accuracy of theSejarahMalayu, from which they are drawn.
There is a Malay word,layu, which means “faded,” “withered,” and it is only the exigency of finding a word applicable to a river that makes it necessary to look for a derivation inlaju, swift. In this or some kindred sense the wordlajuis found in Javanese, Sundanese, and Dayak; but why it should give its name, in the form oflayu, to a river in Sumatra, and thence to the whole Malay race, is not very obvious. A river named in consequence of its swift current would be called by MalaysSungei Laju, notSungei Malaju. Even if the derivation of Malayu frommelajuhad the support of the Malays themselves, Malay etymologies are not often safe guides. Not much, for instance, can be said in favour of the fanciful derivation of Sumatra fromsemut raya, “large ant,” which is given by the author of theSâjarah Malayu.45
It is impossible to treat the story of Sang Sapurba, the first Malay raja, as historical. The name, “Maha-Meru,” sufficiently shows that we are upon mythological ground. The story is as follows:— Three young men descend from the heavens of Indra (ka indra-an) upon the mountain Maha-Meru,on the slopes of which they meet two women who support themselves by planting hill-padi. Supernatural incidents mark the advent of the strangers. The very corn in the ground puts forth ears of gold, while its leaves become silver and its stalks copper. One of the new-comers rides on a white bull, and carries a sword calledChora(Sansk.kshura, a razor)samandang-kini. They are received by the natives of the district (Palembang) and made rajas. He who rides the bull becomes king of Menangkabau, and the other two receive minor kingdoms.
It is not difficult to recognise here certain attributes of the god Çiva, with which, by a not unnatural confusion of ideas, Muhammadan Malays, the recipients of the old traditions, have clothed their first raja.
Maha-Meru, or Sumeru, on which are the abodes of the gods, is placed by Hindu geographers in the centre of the earth.Malayais mentioned in thePuranasas a mountain in which the Godavari and other rivers take their rise. The white bull of Sang Sapurba is evidently thevahanof Çiva, and the name of the sword bears a close resemblance tomanda-kini, the name given in heaven to the sacred Ganges, which springs from the head of Çiva. Most of the incidents in the story, therefore, are of purely Hindu origin, and this gives great probability to the conjecture which assigns a Sanskrit source to the wordMalayu. The Straits of Malacca abound with places with Sanskrit names. Not to speak of Singha-pura, there are the islands of Langka-wi and Lingga and the towns of Indragiri and Indrapura, &c. Sumeru (in Java), Madura, Ayuthia (in Siam), and many other names, show how great Indian influences have been in past times in the far East. May it not be, therefore, thatMalayaorMalayu46was the name by which the earliest Sanskrit-speakingadventurers from India denominated the rude tribes of Sumatra and the peninsula with whom they came in contact, just asJawiis the name given to Malays by the Arabs, the term in either case being adopted by the people from those to whom they looked up with reverence as their conquerors or teachers? According to this view, the introduction of a river,Malayu, into the story of Sang Sapurba is anex post factoway of explaining the name, inserted with this object by the native author of theSâjarah Malayu.
If it be granted that the story of Sang Sapurba is mythological, it becomes unnecessary to follow any attempt to show that the name ofMalayureceived additional celebrity from the marriages of granddaughters of Demang Lebar Daun with the Batara of Majapahit and the Emperor of China! The contemptuous style in which Malay, Javanese, and other barbarian rajas are spoken of by ancient Chinese historians leaves but slender probability to the legend that an Emperor of China once took a Malay princess as his wife.47
From this subject it is natural to proceed to another disputed etymology, namely, the origin of the wordJawi, which is often used by the Malays for the wordMalayuin speaking of their language and written character,bahasa jawimeaning Malay language, andsurat jawia document written in Malay. It is not necessary to go into all the various conjectures on the subject, which will be found in the works of Marsden, Crawfurd, Favre, and others.
Jawiis a word of Arab origin, and is formed in accordance with the rules of Arabic grammar from the nounJawa, Java. Just as fromMakah, Meccah, is derived the wordMakk-i, of or belonging to Meccah, so fromJawa, Java, we getJawi, of or belonging to Java. When this name was first applied to Malays, the Arabs had not an accurate knowledge of the ethnography of the Eastern Archipelago. Without very strict regard to ethnical divergencies, they described all the brownraces of the eastern islands under the comprehensive and convenient termJawi, and the Malays, who alone among those races adopted the Arabic alphabet, adopted also the term in speaking of their language and writing.48
As in Malay there are no inflexions to denote change of number, gender, or person, the connection ofJawiwithJawais quite unknown to the Malays,just as the second part of the wordsenamaki(sena-maki, senna of Meccah49) is not suspected by them to have any reference to the sacred city. There is a considerable Malay and Javanese colony in Meccah,50where all are known to the Meccans indiscriminately asJawi.
Marsden devotes several pages of the introduction to his Malay Grammar to a discussion as to the origin and use of the expressionorang di-bawah angin, people below the wind, applied by Malays to themselves, in contradistinction toorang di-atas angin, people above the wind, or foreigners from the West. He quotes from De Barros and Valentyn, and from several native documents, instances of the use of these expressions, but confesses his inability to explain their origin. Crawfurd quotes these terms, which he considers to be “native,” and remarks that they are used by the Malays alone of all the tribes in the Archipelago. A much more recent writer characterises these terms as “Noms dont on ignore encore la vraie signification.”51
The expression is not of Malay origin, but is a translationinto that language of an Arabic phrase. Instances of its use occur in the “Mohit” (the ocean), a Turkish work on navigation in the Indian seas, written by Sidi al Chelebi, captain of the fleet of Sultan Suleiman the Legislator, in the Red Sea. The original was finished at Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, in the last days of Muharram,A.H.962 (A.D.1554). It enumerates, among others, “the monsoons below the wind, that is, of the parts of India situated below the wind,” among which are “Malacca, Shomotora, Tanassari, Martaban, and Faiku (Pegu).”52
Malay is written in a character which has been borrowed from a foreign literature in comparatively modern times, and which but imperfectly suits its sounds. With the introduction of the Muhammadan religion, the Malays adopted the Arabic alphabet, modified to suit the peculiarities of their language.
In Malay literary compositions there is great diversity in the manner of spelling many words. The accentuation of the spoken dialect differs so much from Arabic, that it is difficult, even for native writers, to decide when to write the long vowels and when to leave them out. This is the point in which diversity is most common.
Every European author who writes Malay in the Roman character has to decide on what system he intends to render the native language by means of our alphabet. The Malay alphabet has thirty-four letters, so it is obvious that ours will not accurately correspond with it. It is open to him, if he wishes to obtain a symbol to correspond with every letter of the Malay alphabet, to employ various means to denote those letters for which we have no equivalents; or he may dismiss the native alphabet from his mind altogether, and determine to write the language phonetically. In a language, however,which abounds in Sanskrit and Arabic words, he should, of course, avoid the adoption of any system of spelling which would disguise the true origin of words of foreign derivation.
Muhammadans from India or Persia introduced their own method of writing among the Malays. They wrote Malay in their own character (to the gradual supersession of any native alphabet that may have previously existed), and this became the alphabet of the Malays.
It is now our turn to write Malay in our character. Is it sufficient to do this in our own way, as those did who introduced the Perso-Arabic alphabet, or must we also have regard to the mode of spelling adopted by the latter?
In an elementary work like the present, it does not seem to be necessary to burden the student with a system of transliteration. The native character is not employed in this manual, and there is, therefore, all the less occasion for using special means for denoting peculiar native letters. It will be found that the mode of spelling Malay words adopted by Marsden has been followed in the main.53In this Introduction the long vowels (that is, the vowels which are written in full in the native character) are marked with a circumflex accent, but it has not been thought necessary to adopt this system in the body of the work.
Sometimes vowels will be found marked with the short sign, ˘. This is only for the purpose of assisting the student in pronunciation, and does not represent any peculiarity in the native character.
The vowels are to be sounded in general as in the languages of the Continent of Europe. Finalkis mute.
The correct pronunciation of Arabic words is aimed at by Malays of education, and the European student should get the right sounds of the vowelainand of the more peculiar Arabic consonants explained to him.
1.Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, p. 272.2.Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 311.3.Idem, p. 315.4.Journ. Ind. Arch., v. p. 569.5.Idem.6.These remarks do not, of course, affect foreign words, such asbumiandbujangderived from the Sanskritbhumiandbhujangga.7.Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertation xxxix., xliii.8.“Innovations of such magnitude, we shall venture to say, could not have been produced otherwise than by the entire domination and possession of these islands by some ancient Hindu power, and by the continuance of its sway during several ages. Of the period when this state of things existed we at present know nothing, and judging of their principles of action by what we witness in these days, we are at a loss to conceive under what circumstances they could have exerted an influence in distant countries of the nature here described. The spirit of foreign conquest does not appear to have distinguished their character and zeal, for the conversion of others to their own religious faith seems to be incompatible with their tenets. We may, however, be deceived by forming our opinion from the contemplation of modern India, and should recollect that, previously to the Mohametan irruptions into the upper provinces, which first took place about the year 1000, and until the progressive subjugation of the country by Persians and Moghuls, there existed several powerful and opulent Hindu states of whose maritime relations we are entirely ignorant at present, and can only cherish the hope of future discoveries from the laudable spirit of research that pervades and does so much honour to our Indian establishments.” —Marsden, Malay Grammar, xxxii.9.Crawfurd. See also Marsden, Malay Grammar, xxxiii.10.“The Hindu religion and Sanskrit language were, in all probability, earliest introduced in the western part of Sumatra, the nearest part of the Archipelago to the continent of India. Java, however, became eventually the favourite abode of Hinduism, and its language the chief recipient of Sanskrit. Through the Javanese and Malays Sanskrit appears to have been disseminated over the rest of the Archipelago, and even to the Philippine Islands. This is to be inferred from the greater number of Sanskrit words in Javanese and Malay—especially in the first of these—than in the other cultivated languages, from their existing in greater purity in the Javanese and Malay, and from the errors of these two languages, both as to sense and orthography, having been copied by all the other tongues. An approximation to the proportions of Sanskrit existing in some of the principal languages will show that the amount constantly diminishes as we recede from Java and Sumatra, until all vestiges of it disappear in the dialects of Polynesia. In the ordinary written language of Java the proportion is about 110 in 1000; in Malay, 50; in the Sunda of Java, 40; in the Bugis, the principal language of Celebes, 17; and in the Tagala, one of the principal languages of the Philippines, about one and a half.” —Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertationxlvii.Sed quæreas to the total absence of Sanskrit in the Polynesian dialects. Ellis’ “Polynesian Researches,” i. 116.11.A selection of words only is given. There are numbers of Sanskrit words in Malay which have no place in these lists.12.Unless the Sansk. rootlikh, to write, may be detected in the second syllable.13.Journal Royal As. Soc., Bengal, vi. 680; xvii. part i. 154 and 232; Idem, part ii. 62, 66.14.Malay Grammar, Dissertation vi.15.This is the derivation given in Favre’s Dictionary. Another fromsoḍha, (borne, undergone) might perhaps be suggested with equal probability.16.Asiatic Researches, iii. 11, 12.17.On the Traces of the Hindu Language and Literature extant among the Malays, As. Res. iv. See also, On the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations, Leyden, As. Res. x.18.The words in this column have been taken from the Malay and French Dictionary of the Abbé Favre. J. signifies Javanese, S. Sundanese, Bat. Battak, Mak. Makassar, Bu. Bugis, D. Dayak, Bis. Bisaya, Tag. Tagala, and Malg. Malagasi.19.Favre derivesabrakfrom the Arabic.20.J., S., and Tag.sila; S.silah, to invite; Bat.sila, a gift of welcome.21.J., S., and D.utara; Bat.otara; Bis.otala, east wind.22.Crawfurd’s Malay Grammar, Dissertation clxxxiii.23.J.mergu; J.sato; S.satoa; D.satua; Bat.santuwa, a mouse.24.Crawfurd has noticed the fact that the names of the domesticated animals are native, one exception being the goose, which, he thinks, may therefore be supposed to have been of foreign introduction (Crawfurd’s Grammar, Dissertation clxxxiii.). It must be remembered, however, that among the Hindus the goose is worshipped at the festivals of Brahma, and that, being thus in a manner sacred, its Sanskrit name would naturally be in use wherever the Hindu religion spread. Brahma is represented as riding on a whitehaṃsa.25.Perhaps a more plausible derivation is from the Tamulari-mâ, a male lion.26.J. and S.garuda; Mak.guruda.27.“Commeline had been informed that the Javans give the name ofMalatito theZambak(Jasminum sambac), which in Sanskrit is calledNavamalika, and which, according to Rheede, is used by the Hindus in their sacrifices; but they make offerings of most odoriferous flowers, and particularly of the variousJasminsandZambaks.” —Sir William Jones,As. Res.iv.28.Ainslie’s Materia Medica, Madras, 1813.Kananaoccurs in the names of several flowers,e.g.,kanana karavira, Plumieria alba.29.Perhaps a corruption ofnila-gandhi. Ainslie gives the Sanskrit name asjela-nirghoondi.30.J.nanas; S.kanas; Bat.honas; D.kanas; J. and S.balimbing; Bat.balingbing.31.Crawfurd, very likely correctly, derives this from the Portuguesebaluârte, a bulwark.32.Journ. Ind. Arch., v. 572.33.Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertation ccii.34.These two words must have been originally used by Malays in the sense which they bear in Sanskrit. “Unto the shoes of my lord’s feet,” or “beneath the dust of your majesty’s feet,” are phrases in whichpadukaandduliwould immediately precede the name or title of the person addressed. Being thus used always in connection with the titles of royal or distinguished persons, the two words have been taken for honorific titles, and are so used by Malays, unaware of the humble origin of what are to them high-sounding words.35.“The Javanese have peopled the air, the woods and rivers with various classes of spirits, their belief in which probably constituted their sole religion before the arrival of the Bramins.” —Crawfurd’s Grammar,Dissertationcxcix.36.“The Javanese consider all the Hindu gods of their former belief not as imaginary beings, but as real demons” (Ibid.), just as the early Christians regarded the classic gods, and attributed oracles to diabolical agency.37.J., S., Mak., D., and Bis.puasa; Bat.puaso.38.“Agamain Sanskrit is ‘authority for religious doctrine:’ in Malay and Javanese it is religion itself, and is at present applied both to the Mohammedan and the Christian religions.” —Crawfurd,Malay Grammar,Dissertationcxcviii.39.I have found both these words used separately and distinctly by Pawangs in the state of Perak. Raffles and Logan confused them. Journ. Ind. Arch., i. 309; History of Java, ii. 369. De Backer mentionsongonly. L’Archipel. Indien, p. 28740.Malay Grammar, Introduction.41.L’Archipel Indien, p. 53.42.Maleische Spraakkunst, door G. H. Werndly p. xix.43.The derivation ofjudi, gaming, fromdyuta(game at dice), seems to be preferable to that adopted by M. Favre (following Van der Tuuk), who refers it toyodi, a warrior.44.Favre, Grammaire de la Langue Malaise, Introduction, viii.45.Leyden’s Malay Annals, 65.46.Besides signifying a range of mountains,Malayahas the secondary meaning of “a garden.” If the term was applied originally in reference to the agricultural pursuits of the primitive tribes, it receives additional illustration from the name given to one of the women whom Sang Sapurba meets on Mount Maha-Meru, “Malini,” a gardener’s wife (Sansk.).47.See Grœneveldt’s Notes on the Malay Archipelago, compiled from Chinese sources. Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, xxxix.48.“Sawa,Jawa,Saba,Jaba,Zaba, &c., has evidently in all times been the capital local name in Indonesia. The whole Archipelago was compressed into an island of that name by the Hindus and Romans. Even in the time of Marco Polo we have only aJava Majorand aJava Minor. The Bugis apply the name of Jawa,Jawaka(comp. the PolynesianSawaiki, CerameseSawai) to the Moluccas. One of the principal divisions of Battaland in Sumatra is calledTanah Jawa. Ptolemy has both Jaba and Saba.” —Logan,Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 338.49.Senna(Cassia senna), as a medicine, enjoys a high reputation in India and all over the East. In Favre’s Malay-French Dictionarydaun sena-makiis translatedfeuilles de séné, no notice being taken of the last word; but Shakespear’s Hindustani Dictionary hassena makk-i, “senna of Mecca.”50.Burton’s Pilgrimage to Medinah and Meccah, p. 175.51.De Backer, L’Archipel Indien, li. (Paris, 1874).52.Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, iii. 545.53.In certain foreign words the hardkwill be found to be denoted by a dot under the letter, thus, ḳ; and the peculiar vowel sound represented in Arabic by the letterainis denoted by the Greek rough breathing ‘.
1.Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, p. 272.
2.Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 311.
3.Idem, p. 315.
4.Journ. Ind. Arch., v. p. 569.
5.Idem.
6.These remarks do not, of course, affect foreign words, such asbumiandbujangderived from the Sanskritbhumiandbhujangga.
7.Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertation xxxix., xliii.
8.“Innovations of such magnitude, we shall venture to say, could not have been produced otherwise than by the entire domination and possession of these islands by some ancient Hindu power, and by the continuance of its sway during several ages. Of the period when this state of things existed we at present know nothing, and judging of their principles of action by what we witness in these days, we are at a loss to conceive under what circumstances they could have exerted an influence in distant countries of the nature here described. The spirit of foreign conquest does not appear to have distinguished their character and zeal, for the conversion of others to their own religious faith seems to be incompatible with their tenets. We may, however, be deceived by forming our opinion from the contemplation of modern India, and should recollect that, previously to the Mohametan irruptions into the upper provinces, which first took place about the year 1000, and until the progressive subjugation of the country by Persians and Moghuls, there existed several powerful and opulent Hindu states of whose maritime relations we are entirely ignorant at present, and can only cherish the hope of future discoveries from the laudable spirit of research that pervades and does so much honour to our Indian establishments.” —Marsden, Malay Grammar, xxxii.
9.Crawfurd. See also Marsden, Malay Grammar, xxxiii.
10.“The Hindu religion and Sanskrit language were, in all probability, earliest introduced in the western part of Sumatra, the nearest part of the Archipelago to the continent of India. Java, however, became eventually the favourite abode of Hinduism, and its language the chief recipient of Sanskrit. Through the Javanese and Malays Sanskrit appears to have been disseminated over the rest of the Archipelago, and even to the Philippine Islands. This is to be inferred from the greater number of Sanskrit words in Javanese and Malay—especially in the first of these—than in the other cultivated languages, from their existing in greater purity in the Javanese and Malay, and from the errors of these two languages, both as to sense and orthography, having been copied by all the other tongues. An approximation to the proportions of Sanskrit existing in some of the principal languages will show that the amount constantly diminishes as we recede from Java and Sumatra, until all vestiges of it disappear in the dialects of Polynesia. In the ordinary written language of Java the proportion is about 110 in 1000; in Malay, 50; in the Sunda of Java, 40; in the Bugis, the principal language of Celebes, 17; and in the Tagala, one of the principal languages of the Philippines, about one and a half.” —Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertationxlvii.Sed quæreas to the total absence of Sanskrit in the Polynesian dialects. Ellis’ “Polynesian Researches,” i. 116.
11.A selection of words only is given. There are numbers of Sanskrit words in Malay which have no place in these lists.
12.Unless the Sansk. rootlikh, to write, may be detected in the second syllable.
13.Journal Royal As. Soc., Bengal, vi. 680; xvii. part i. 154 and 232; Idem, part ii. 62, 66.
14.Malay Grammar, Dissertation vi.
15.This is the derivation given in Favre’s Dictionary. Another fromsoḍha, (borne, undergone) might perhaps be suggested with equal probability.
16.Asiatic Researches, iii. 11, 12.
17.On the Traces of the Hindu Language and Literature extant among the Malays, As. Res. iv. See also, On the Languages and Literature of the Indo-Chinese Nations, Leyden, As. Res. x.
18.The words in this column have been taken from the Malay and French Dictionary of the Abbé Favre. J. signifies Javanese, S. Sundanese, Bat. Battak, Mak. Makassar, Bu. Bugis, D. Dayak, Bis. Bisaya, Tag. Tagala, and Malg. Malagasi.
19.Favre derivesabrakfrom the Arabic.
20.J., S., and Tag.sila; S.silah, to invite; Bat.sila, a gift of welcome.
21.J., S., and D.utara; Bat.otara; Bis.otala, east wind.
22.Crawfurd’s Malay Grammar, Dissertation clxxxiii.
23.J.mergu; J.sato; S.satoa; D.satua; Bat.santuwa, a mouse.
24.Crawfurd has noticed the fact that the names of the domesticated animals are native, one exception being the goose, which, he thinks, may therefore be supposed to have been of foreign introduction (Crawfurd’s Grammar, Dissertation clxxxiii.). It must be remembered, however, that among the Hindus the goose is worshipped at the festivals of Brahma, and that, being thus in a manner sacred, its Sanskrit name would naturally be in use wherever the Hindu religion spread. Brahma is represented as riding on a whitehaṃsa.
25.Perhaps a more plausible derivation is from the Tamulari-mâ, a male lion.
26.J. and S.garuda; Mak.guruda.
27.“Commeline had been informed that the Javans give the name ofMalatito theZambak(Jasminum sambac), which in Sanskrit is calledNavamalika, and which, according to Rheede, is used by the Hindus in their sacrifices; but they make offerings of most odoriferous flowers, and particularly of the variousJasminsandZambaks.” —Sir William Jones,As. Res.iv.
28.Ainslie’s Materia Medica, Madras, 1813.Kananaoccurs in the names of several flowers,e.g.,kanana karavira, Plumieria alba.
29.Perhaps a corruption ofnila-gandhi. Ainslie gives the Sanskrit name asjela-nirghoondi.
30.J.nanas; S.kanas; Bat.honas; D.kanas; J. and S.balimbing; Bat.balingbing.
31.Crawfurd, very likely correctly, derives this from the Portuguesebaluârte, a bulwark.
32.Journ. Ind. Arch., v. 572.
33.Crawfurd, Malay Grammar, Dissertation ccii.
34.These two words must have been originally used by Malays in the sense which they bear in Sanskrit. “Unto the shoes of my lord’s feet,” or “beneath the dust of your majesty’s feet,” are phrases in whichpadukaandduliwould immediately precede the name or title of the person addressed. Being thus used always in connection with the titles of royal or distinguished persons, the two words have been taken for honorific titles, and are so used by Malays, unaware of the humble origin of what are to them high-sounding words.
35.“The Javanese have peopled the air, the woods and rivers with various classes of spirits, their belief in which probably constituted their sole religion before the arrival of the Bramins.” —Crawfurd’s Grammar,Dissertationcxcix.
36.“The Javanese consider all the Hindu gods of their former belief not as imaginary beings, but as real demons” (Ibid.), just as the early Christians regarded the classic gods, and attributed oracles to diabolical agency.
37.J., S., Mak., D., and Bis.puasa; Bat.puaso.
38.“Agamain Sanskrit is ‘authority for religious doctrine:’ in Malay and Javanese it is religion itself, and is at present applied both to the Mohammedan and the Christian religions.” —Crawfurd,Malay Grammar,Dissertationcxcviii.
39.I have found both these words used separately and distinctly by Pawangs in the state of Perak. Raffles and Logan confused them. Journ. Ind. Arch., i. 309; History of Java, ii. 369. De Backer mentionsongonly. L’Archipel. Indien, p. 287
40.Malay Grammar, Introduction.
41.L’Archipel Indien, p. 53.
42.Maleische Spraakkunst, door G. H. Werndly p. xix.
43.The derivation ofjudi, gaming, fromdyuta(game at dice), seems to be preferable to that adopted by M. Favre (following Van der Tuuk), who refers it toyodi, a warrior.
44.Favre, Grammaire de la Langue Malaise, Introduction, viii.
45.Leyden’s Malay Annals, 65.
46.Besides signifying a range of mountains,Malayahas the secondary meaning of “a garden.” If the term was applied originally in reference to the agricultural pursuits of the primitive tribes, it receives additional illustration from the name given to one of the women whom Sang Sapurba meets on Mount Maha-Meru, “Malini,” a gardener’s wife (Sansk.).
47.See Grœneveldt’s Notes on the Malay Archipelago, compiled from Chinese sources. Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, xxxix.
48.“Sawa,Jawa,Saba,Jaba,Zaba, &c., has evidently in all times been the capital local name in Indonesia. The whole Archipelago was compressed into an island of that name by the Hindus and Romans. Even in the time of Marco Polo we have only aJava Majorand aJava Minor. The Bugis apply the name of Jawa,Jawaka(comp. the PolynesianSawaiki, CerameseSawai) to the Moluccas. One of the principal divisions of Battaland in Sumatra is calledTanah Jawa. Ptolemy has both Jaba and Saba.” —Logan,Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 338.
49.Senna(Cassia senna), as a medicine, enjoys a high reputation in India and all over the East. In Favre’s Malay-French Dictionarydaun sena-makiis translatedfeuilles de séné, no notice being taken of the last word; but Shakespear’s Hindustani Dictionary hassena makk-i, “senna of Mecca.”
50.Burton’s Pilgrimage to Medinah and Meccah, p. 175.
51.De Backer, L’Archipel Indien, li. (Paris, 1874).
52.Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, iii. 545.
53.In certain foreign words the hardkwill be found to be denoted by a dot under the letter, thus, ḳ; and the peculiar vowel sound represented in Arabic by the letterainis denoted by the Greek rough breathing ‘.