Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrai9101882roya).pdf/333

 of getting over that crucial test—the open semi-vowel sound, so much more common in Malay than in English. Both of these points are treated briefly by the Committee under paragraphs 3 and 6 of their Report (containing 17 paragraphs altogether) and the differences between the two methods are really summed up in the following statements :—

a. The Committee considers that (paragraph 3) "in Malay as in Chinese it is sounds and not letters that have to be represented."


 * The critic considers that (page 142) "there are two objects to be kept in view: 1st to obtain a faithful transliteration of the Malay character; and 2nd to clothe the words in such a form that they may be pronounced correctly by an English reader."

b. The Committee considers (paragraph 6) that as to the open semi-vowel sound (which the critic refers to as the sound which can only be expressed in Arabic writing by the fathah) "no natural representative suggests itself, and that there will be the least danger of misunderstanding if this sound be uniformly expressed by the letter ĕ, sound as in 'lateral' 'considerable'"—e unmarked being devoted to the ordinary English sound as in Ten (English), Sendok (Malay).


 * The critic proposes (page 117) that a or e unmarked shall correspond with fathah; and as to the ordinary English sound as in Sendok he omits to deal with it altogether.

A good deal of his paper deals very ably with philological questions, which lead him not only beyond the ground covered by our Report, but even beyond the principles of his own spelling system, as for example when he suggests :—