Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. (IA mobot31753002412044).pdf/165

 sarcastic or ironical remark they use siaupi (sau-phî), to be satisfied kam-guan (kam-guān), nice, homia (hó-miâ), etc.

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 themselves. Those Malays who come frequently into contact with the Chinese are of course well acquainted with such words as goa and lu, loteng, 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 unacquainted with the Malay equivalents of nearly all these words.

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, pandang, tengok, nampak, tampak, tngadah, mnoleh, tilek, belek, etc.; but the Babas hardly ever use any of these except tengok and nampak, and occasionally lihat and pandang. Similarly they make the one word taroh serve the purpose where the Malays use taroh, buboh and ltak; and the word angkat is used by them where the Malays would say pikul, kelek, tatang, kandong, kendong, junjong, 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 meaning 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, tuang and not churah, pegang (for pgang) and not chapai, tngkar and not bantah; spak and not tampar, kosong and not hampa, panas and not hangat. Of the formation of derived words from roots by means of prefixes and suffixes the Babas as 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 pnyapu, broom, is well known, but they would not understand its connection with sapu,