Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/18

 4 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE lowed the well known and artificial classification of that alphabet. The Javanese language has twenty consonants, and six vowel sounds. The letters of the alpha- bet, in the native enumeration of them, are con- sidered but twenty in number, the vowels being omitted, and considered only as orthographic marks, like the supplementary characters of the Arabic alphabet. Of the Dewanagari alphabet, the Java- nese wants no less than fourteen consonants. An European is most struck with the absence of the letters f and v, and of that sound for which sk stands in our own language. With respect to the vowels, the greatest peculiarity is the frequent sub- stitution of the vowel o for the a of other languages, ' or rather the transformation of the latter into the former. The Indian words kama, love, and sama, with, become, in the enunciation of the Javanese, komo and somo. But this happens without any change in the orthography ; for this commutable sound is that vowel of the Indian alphabet inherent in every consonant, without being expressed. This peculiarity I am inclined to consider as quite acci- xlental ; for we find, that while the o is the favour- ite vowel of the Javanese, their neighbours, on the same island, and on Madura, adopt the <7, and tribes as little connected with them as possible^ on Sumatra, like them prefer the broad sound of o. When one consonant coalesces with another, or