Page:Journal Of The Indian Archipelago And Eastern Asia Series.i, Vol.2 (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.107695).pdf/626

 which do not contain the elements of the sound. The English and Spaniards represent it by ch, the French by tch, and the Dutch by tj. The Italians represent it before the vowels e. and i. by the letter c., and I have adopted this to represent the sound universally, placing au orthographic mark over it, to obviate any ambiguity.

The first d. in the series above given is a dental, and the second marked by a dot is a palatal. They are carefully distinguished by the Javanese, but not by the Malays although both be exhibited in the scheme of their alphabet.

The letter f. as a native sound is unknown to the Malay and Java- nese languages, and is confined to a few of the ruder tongues. I give to the letter g. invariably, its hard sound. The letter h. represents the simple aspirate, aud, fur the most part, occurs, in so far as na- tive words are concerned, after a vowel,—in Malay and Javanese al- ways so. The letter j. represents a sound for which there is a cha- racter in all the native alphabets exactly corresponding to its Eng- lish pronunciation, but not to that of any other European nation. The Dutch represent it by dj, which do not contain the elements of the sound, besides being clumsy.

The ṅ with a dot represents a sound for which there is a charac- ter in all the languages of the Archipelago. It is the ng. of the European systems, and in the native languages is used as an initial, as well as a medial or final. After a vowel and closing a syllable it is represented in most of the alphabets by a dot over the consonant. The sound which I represent thus ñ, is taken from the Spanish or- thography in which it appears as a substantive letter. It occurs in the Spanish word España, it is the gn. of the French and occurs with us in such words as union, onion &c.

In Malay and Javanese, there are two ts., a dental and a palatal, the first being of most frequent occurrence. The Javanese, but not the Malays, carefully distinguish them. I have marked the palatal with a dot as in the case of the palatal d. The letter w. has exact- ly its English sound, and y. is our consonant of this name which the Dutch and Germans represent by j. The letter z., like f., as a na- tive sound, occurs only in a few barbarous and unwritten languages.

The liquids or consonants which coalesce with other consonants are l. r. w. and y.,—the two first very frequently, and the two last rarely. The vowels of the Javanese alphabet, and they correspond exact- ly with the vocalic sounds of the Malay language, are six in number, and with one more will suffice to express all the vowels of all the lan-