Page:Baba Malay. An Introduction to the Language of the Straits-born Chinese.pdf/8

56 BABA MALAY. sarcastic or ironical remark they use siaupi (sau-phi), to be satis- fied kam-guan (kam-guan), nice, homia (hd-mia), ete.

It should be remembered that for nearly all the ideas and objects mentioned above the Malays have their own proper words; which they would use among themselyes. Those Malays who come frequently into contact with the Chinese are of course well ac- quainted with such words as goa and lu, lotery, tekuan, kuchai, pechai, toaha, taukeh, and so forth, but with many of the words of Chinese origin given above even the Malays in the town of Malacca are quite unfamiliar. Similarly the Babas are utterly unacquaint- ed with the Malay equivalents of nearly all these words.

2. Malay words which are unknown to the Babas.

From what has been said above it is evident that the Babas are unfamiliar with those Malay words of which they are accustomed to use the Chinese equivalents, but there are also a large number of other words in common use among the Malays of which the Babas are entirely ignorant. It is of course well known in European countries that those who cannot read their own language use but a very small number of words in ordinary conversation; we can only hope to acquire a large vocabulary in our own language by constant reading. With few exceptions the Babas read absolutely nothing in the Malay language, and consequently their knowledge of Malay words is very limited. The Malay language is rich in synonyms, and has words to express the finest shades of meaning; but where a number of words have somewhat similar meanings, the Baba uses only one or two to express them all, For instance, for looking and seeing the Malays use the words lihat, pandarg. teryok, nampak, tampak, trgadah, mnoleh, tilek, belek, ete.; but the Babas hardly ever use any of these except teryok and nampak, and occasionally lihat and pandary. Similarly they make the one word taroh serve the purpose where the Malays use taroh, buboh and tak; and the word argkat is used by them where the Malays would say pikul, kelek, tatarg, kandow, kendorg, junjory, dokong. Many of the Babas would know some of these words if they heard a Malay use them, but they for the most part do not know the exact shades of mean ng which they express, and consequently they do not attempt to use them. Where the Malays use two words of somewhat similar meaning, the Babas generally use one to the entire exclusion of the other, for instance they use berjumpa and not bertmu, tuary and not churah, pegarg (for pgary) and not chapai, trgkar and not bantah; spak and not tampar, kosorg and not hampa, panas and not hargat, Of the formation of derived words from roots by means of prefixes and suffixes the Babas a8 a rule know nothing whatever; in many cases however they use derived words, but do not seem to understand their connection with the root word: as for instance the word pryapu, broom, is well known, but they would not understand its connection with sapu, Jour. Straits Branch