Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Achehnese Vol II. - tr. Arthur Warren Swete O'Sullivan (1906).djvu/24

 selves to the reading of Javanese works. The subsequent literal translation (logat or maʾna) removes all doubt as to the meaning of the Arabic words, and the explanation (murad) makes the matter digestible and capable of being applied.

The other method of instruction which has during the last thirty or forty years gradually gained supremacy in Java under Mekkan and Ḥadramite influence, is more logical, but requires much greater patience and perseverance. It takes several years for the Indonesian to learn enough Arabic to enable him to begin to read a simple learned work with some degree of discrimination. This preparation costs him no little racking of his brains, the results of which he cannot hope to enjoy for a long time to come.

The Sundanese follow the same system as the Javanese, but with this additional difficulty, that the language into which the translation is made (Javanese) is strange to them, and that only the exposition (murad) is given them in their own tongue.

This method, which in Java may still be called new-fashioned, appears to have been in vogue in Acheh for a long time past. It is only those who do not really devote themselves to study who employ the elementary Malay books, just as the Sundanese under similar circumstances avail themselves of Javanese works, or even of those written in their own tongue. But the student in Acheh begins by struggling through a mountain of grammatical matter.

First comes the science of inflexions, sarah or teuseuréh (Arab. çarf or taçrīf), for which are employed manuals consisting chiefly of paradigms, especially that known as Midan (Arab. Mīzān). These are followed by a number of widely known works on Arabic grammar (nahu), which are generally studied in the order given below. The Achehnese names are as follows, the Arabic equivalents being given in the note : Awamè, Jeurumiah, Matamimah, Pawakèh, Alpiah, Ebeunu Aké.

It must be borne in mind that the Achehnese have the same difficulty to overcome as the Sundanese, since for them too the text-books are translated into a foreign language, the Malay. Thus we can easily understand how the majority of students in Acheh fail to complete what we might call the preliminary studies (known to the Arabs as