Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/106

 88 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE comes hachara, Imlmvargah, halurga ; dahsina is taksinay hangsay gangsa; and randa^janda* In Javanese, the orthography of these words is pre- served with perfect purity, exactly parallel to the manner in which it preserves words of the great Polynesian language. In derivative languages, not only are the harsh consonants of the primitive language softened, but its broad vowels assume a more slender sound. Such changes are, I believe, constantly effected in the English upon Saxon roots, and they perpe- tually occur to us in comparing other languages of the Archipelago with the Javanese. I take my examples from the Malay, the only language fami- liar enough to me to enable me to institute such a comparison. Here we find the short u of our orthography changed into Italian i, long u into short ii, or into i or e, and broad o into short n or a. Thus jdn7iak, tame, in Javanese, becomes in Malay jinak ; pochot, to pluck up, pachat ; and suruJiy betle pepper, sireh. Of the disposition in the derivative language to substitute vowels or soft consonants for consonants of difficult utterance, innumerable examples may be adduced. Nganteh in Javanese becomes gantek in Malay, mliwis becomes blibiSy and ngcisap be- comes isdp ; woJi becomes bit ah, and ros ruas. Sometimes to obviate a hiatus a consonant seems to be interposed, and on this principle I account for was in Javanese, supposing it to be the root.