LANGUAGES.
MALAYAN.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED.
LANGUAGES OF THE INTERIOR PEOPLE.
PECULIAR CHARACTERS.
SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES AND OF ALPHABETS.
LANGUAGES.
Before I proceed to an account of the laws, customs, and manners of the
people of the island it is necessary that I should say something of the
different languages spoken on it, the diversity of which has been the
subject of much contemplation and conjecture.
MALAYAN.
The Malayan language, which has commonly been supposed original in the
peninsula of Malayo, and from thence to have extended itself throughout
the eastern islands, so as to become the lingua franca of that part of
the globe, is spoken everywhere along the coasts of Sumatra, prevails
without the mixture of any other in the inland country of Menangkabau and
its immediate dependencies, and is understood in almost every part of the
island. It has been much celebrated, and justly, for the smoothness and
sweetness of its sound, which have gained it the appellation of the
Italian of the East. This is owing to the prevalence of vowels and
liquids in the words (with many nasals which may be thought an objection)
and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These
qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are
passionately addicted to.
SONGS.
They amuse all their leisure hours, including the greater portion of
their lives, with the repetition of songs which are, for the most part,
proverbs illustrated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of
life. Some that they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, at their bimbangs
or feasts, are historical love tales like our old English ballads, and
are often extemporaneous productions. An example of the former species is
as follows:
Apa guna passang palita,
Kallo tidah dangan sumbu'nia?
Apa guna bermine matta,
Kalla tidah dangan sunggu'nia?
What signifies attempting to light a lamp,
If the wick be wanting?
What signifies playing with the eyes,
If nothing in earnest be intended?
It must be observed however that it often proves a very difficult matter
to trace the connexion between the figurative and the literal sense of
the stanza. The essentials in the composition of the pantun, for such
these little pieces are called, the longer being called dendang, are the
rhythmus and the figure, particularly the latter, which they consider as
the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt
which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a
work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and
a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in
some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who
was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta
katta saja"--mere conversation; meaning that it was destitute of the
quaint and figurative expressions which adorn their own poetry. Their
language in common speaking is proverbial and sententious. If a young
woman prove with child before marriage they observe it is daulu buah,
kadian bunga--the fruit before the flower. Hearing of a person's death
they say, nen matti, matti; nen idup, bekraja: kallo sampi janji'nia, apa
buli buat?--Those who are dead, are dead; those who survive must work: if
his allotted time was expired, what resource is there? The latter phrase
they always make use of to express their sense of inevitability, and has
more force than any translation of it I can employ.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED BY MALAYS.
Their writing is in the Arabic character, with modifications to adapt
that alphabet to their language, and, in consequence of the adoption of
their religion from the same quarter, a great number of Arabic words are
incorporated with the Malayan. The Portuguese too have furnished them
with several terms, chiefly for such ideas as they have acquired since
the period of European discoveries to the eastward. They write on paper,
using ink of their own composition, with pens made of the twig of the
anau tree. I could never discover that the Malays had any original
written characters peculiar to themselves before they acquired those now
in use; but it is possible that such might have been lost, a fate that
may hereafter attend the Batta, Rejang, and others of Sumatra, on which
the Arabic daily makes encroachments. Yet I have had frequent occasion to
observe the former language written by inland people in the country
character; which would indicate that the speech is likely to perish
first. The Malayan books are very numerous, both in prose and verse. Many
of them are commentaries on the koran, and others romances or heroic
tales.
The purest or most elegant Malayan is said, and with great appearance of
reason, to be spoken at Malacca. It differs from the dialect used in
Sumatra chiefly in this, that words, in the latter, made to terminate in
"o," are in the former, sounded as ending in "a." Thus they pronounce
lada (pepper) instead of lado. Those words which end with "k" in writing,
are, in Sumatra, always softened in speaking, by omitting it; as tabbe
bannia, many compliments, for tabbek banniak; but the Malaccans, and
especially the more eastern people, who speak a very broad dialect, give
them generally the full sound. The personal pronouns also differ
materially in the respective countries.
Attempts have been made to compose a grammar of this tongue upon the
principles on which those of the European languages are formed. But the
inutility of such productions is obvious. Where there is no inflexion of
either nouns or verbs there can be no cases, declensions, moods, or
conjugations. All this is performed by the addition of certain words
expressive of a determinate meaning, which should not be considered as
mere auxiliaries, or as particles subservient to other words. Thus, in
the instance of rumah, a house; deri pada rumah signifies from a house;
but it would be talking without use or meaning to say that deri pada is
the sign of the ablative case of that noun, for then every preposition
should equally require an appropriate case, and as well as of, to, and
from, we should have a case for deatas rumah, on top of the house. So of
verbs: kallo saya buli jalan, If I could walk: this may be termed the
preter-imperfect tense of the subjunctive or potential mood of the verb
jalan; whereas it is in fact a sentence of which jalan, buli, etc. are
constituent words. It is improper, I say, to talk of the case of a noun
which does not change its termination, or the mood of a verb which does
not alter its form. A useful set of observations might be collected for
speaking the language with correctness and propriety, but they must be
independent of the technical rules of languages founded on different
principles.*
(*Footnote. I have ventured to make this attempt, and have also prepared
a Dictionary of the language which it is my intention to print with as
little delay as circUmstances will admit.)
INTERIOR PEOPLE USE LANGUAGES DIFFERENT FROM THE MALAYAN.
Beside the Malayan there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra
which however have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but
also to that general language which is found to prevail in, and to be
indigenous to all the islands of the eastern sea; from Madagascar to the
remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries; comprehending a wider extent than
the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. Indisputable examples of
this connexion and similarity I have exhibited in a paper which the
Society of Antiquaries have done me the honour to publish in their
Archaeologia, Volume 6. In different places it has been more or less
mixed and corrupted, but between the most dissimilar branches an evident
sameness of many radical words is apparent, and in some, very distant
from each other in point of situation, as for instance the Philippines
and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is
observed in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom.
To render this comparison of languages more extensive, and if possible to
bring all those spoken throughout the world into one point of view, is an
object of which I have never lost sight, but my hopes of completing such
a work are by no means sanguine.
PECULIAR WRITTEN CHARACTERS.
The principal of these Sumatran languages are the Botta, the Rejang, and
the Lampong, whose difference is marked not so much by the want of
correspondence in the terms as by the circumstance of their being
expressed in distinct and peculiar written characters. But whether this
apparent difference be radical and essential, or only produced by
accident and the lapse of time, may be thought to admit of doubt; and, in
order that the reader may be enabled to form his own judgment, a plate
containing the Alphabetical characters of each, with the mode of applying
the orthographical marks to those of the Rejang language in particular,
is annexed. It would indeed be extraordinary, and perhaps singular in the
history of human improvement, that divisions of people in the same
island, with equal claims to originality, in stages of civilization
nearly equal, and speaking languages derived from the same source, should
employ characters different from each other, as well as from the rest of
the world. It will be found however that the alphabet used in the
neighbouring island of Java (given by Corneille Le Brun), that used by
the Tagala people of the Philippines (given by Thevenot), and by the
Bugis people of Celebes (given by Captain Forrest), vary at least as much
from these and from each other as the Rejang from the Batta. The Sanskrit
scholar will at the same time perceive in several of them an analogy to
the rhythmical arrangement, terminating with a nasal, which distinguishes
the alphabet of that ancient language whose influence is known to have
been extensive in this quarter. In the country of Achin, where the
language differs considerably from the Malayan, the Arabic character has
nevertheless been adopted, and on this account it has less claim to
originality.
ON BARK OF TREES AND BAMBOO.
Their manuscripts of any bulk and importance are written with ink of
their own making on the inner bark of a tree cut into slips of several
feet in length and folded together in squares; each square or fold
answering to a page or leaf. For more common occasions they write on the
outer coat of a joint of bamboo, sometimes whole but generally split into
pieces of two or three inches in breadth, with the point of the weapon
worn at their side, which serves the purpose of a stylus; and these
writings, or scratchings rather, are often performed with a considerable
degree of neatness. Thus the Chinese also are said by their historians to
have written on pieces of bamboo before they invented paper. Of both
kinds of manuscript I have many specimens in my possession. The lines are
formed from the left hand towards the right, contrary to the practice of
the Malays and the Arabians.
In Java, Siam, and other parts of the East, beside the common language of
the country, there is established a court language spoken by persons of
rank only; a distinction invented for the purpose of keeping the vulgar
at a distance, and inspiring them with respect for what they do not
understand. The Malays also have their bhasa dalam, or courtly style,
which contains a number of expressions not familiarly used in common
conversation or writing, but yet by no means constituting a separate
language, any more than, in English, the elevated style of our poets and
historians. Amongst the inhabitants of Sumatra in general disparity of
condition is not attended with much ceremonious distance of behaviour
between the persons.
(TABLE OF SUMATRAN ALPHABETS.)
(TABLE OF SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN SUMATRA.)