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/311

 by Roman letters as the native sounds; for they are not only very peculiar, but very alien to the genius, both of the European and insular languages. Following the order of the Roman alphabet, they are represented by the following characters:— f, g, h, k, ll, P, s, s, s', ç, t, x, z, z.

F is a letter found in a few of the rude languages of the Archipelago, but in no written one as representing a native sound. The Malays often in writing, and always in speaking, turn it into a p, just as the Arabs follow the opposite course, and turn a p into an f. The sound which is represented by an Italic g comes nearest to our Northumbrian r, but the Malays make no attempt at its true pronunciation, converting it into an ordinary g, or even into k. The Italic à is the common aspirate of the European languages, but the Malays hardly pronounce it at the beginning of words where it chiefly occurs. The Italic k represents the strong guttural of the Arabic language, which occurs in the Arabian words for coffee and alkoran, viz., kŭwăh and kăran; but the Malays make no attempt at its genuine pronunciation, substituting that of an ordinary k for it. The two letters marked ll and l' have sounds approaching that of the double ll of the French, and the soft 1 of the Italian language, but, perhaps, still more nearly resembling that of the double 11 of Welsh and Irish. The Arabs, no doubt, make a distinction between the pronunciation of these two letters, but neither Europeans nor Malays can do so; and the latter usually pro- nounce them as an ordinary 1. They are the same letters that the Persians convert into sibilants, and pronounce as z. The three sibilants marked as s, s', and ç, are all pronounced by the Malays like the ordinary s of the European languages, which is the same as the native Malay sibilant. The sound of the second is the sh of our own orthography, the ch of the French, and the sch of the German and Dutch. The letter marked as an Italic t is pronounced by the Malays like their own dental t. The letter x is taken from the old Spanish orthography, in which it represented the true Arabic sound. It is the strong harsh guttural, so frequent in the Celtic languages, as in the word loch, a lake, and the ch of the German and Dutch alphabets. The Malays pronounce it as a common k. There are two letters