Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/241

 SECTION I : FUNDAMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS.

1. The present monograph is a dehneation of the phonetic phenomena of the IN languages.

Note. — As to the method of transcription, see § 39, as to the abbreviations, § 38.

2. Up to the present no comprehensive work on this subject has appeared, but a sufficient quantity of material for such a work has been published in the shape of IN grammars and vocabularies and a number of treatises. I shall not enumerate these sources and prelitninary works here, because I intend to refer to them in detail in my “Geschichte der IN Sprachforschung” which is to appear shortly. — The works of my predecessors have furnished me with a relatively small part of the materials, either rough hewn or more or less worked up; the greater part has been collected by myself. In its whole plan, as well as in the execution of the individual sections dealing with the subject from various points of view, my monograph takes its own independent line. 3. I have to delineate the IN phonetic phenomena of the past as well as those of the present time. The past history of IN sounds can be gathered from the written documents handed down to us, or it can be deduced by the usual methods of linguistic science, above all by the method of comparison. On account of its heritage of written documents dating from former periods, Javanese is of special importance for the study of IN phonetics; Bugis, Sundanese, Malagasy, and some other tongues, are of much less moment. 4. For our deductions we often require a basis to start from; and that basis is Original IN. In this matter I follow Rh