Page:A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language with a Preliminary Dissertation- Dissertation and Grammar, in Two Volumes, Vol. I (IA dli.granth.52714).pdf/11

 PREFACE.

Work which I now submit to the Public is the result of much labour, spread, with various interruptions, over a period of more than forty years, twelve of which were passed an countries of which the Malay is the vernacular or the popular language, and ten in the compilation of materials.

It remains for me only to acknowledge my obligations to those who assisted me in the compilation of my book. My first and greatest are to my friend and predecessor in the same field of labour, the late William Marsden, the judicious and learned author of the History of Sumatra, and of the Malay Grammar and Dictionary. A few months before his death, Mr. Marsden delivered to me a copy of his Dictionary, corrected with his own hand, and two valuable lists of words, with which he had been furnished by the Rev. Mr. Hutchins, of Penang, and by the Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Batavia and Bencoolen. These, aided by Javanese dictionaries compiled during a six years' sojourn in Java, and by recent reading, constitute, in fact, the chief materials from which the present work has been prepared. Without the previous labours of