Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/74

 to endeavour to represent Chinese sounds in Roman letters. The great difficulty in doing this arises from the fact that in every dialect of Chinese there are sounds which no combinations or modifications of Roman letters are able to express adequately; so that the best system must be imperfect, and can only approximately represent Chinese words. Those members of the Committee who are most conversant with the Chinese language, are, however, of opinion, that the system suggested below is satisfactory as far as it goes; and further, that no additional modification of the Roman letters would be of any substantial advantage. But they strongly recommend that to secure identification in all important documents, Chinese names should be written in the Chinese as well as in the Roman character.

3. The difficulties in the way of writing Malay in Roman letters are not so great still there are difficulties which everybody who has attempted to deal with the subject has felt. The chief of these is to be found in the circumstance that in Malay, more frequently than otherwise, the vowels are not expressed; so that here also as in Chinese, it is sounds and not letters that have to be represented. It should, however, be observed that the Malay writing is so far phonetic that the Roman characters, according to the system recommended by the Committee, will in the main give the spelling as well as the sound. Again, in order to help persons unacquainted with, or possessing but little knowledge of the language, it has been found absolutely necessary to mark the difference between short and long vowel sounds by accents of some kind, and great care is required to make these as intelligible as possible: and for simplicity's sake, as few as may be. Moreover, some of the consonants in Malay have na single equivalent, and others in certain situations have a special and peculiar use.

4. Hitherto no one system of spelling has been generally recognized and adopted, which has led to several absurd mistakes, such as Selângor being spelt as Salengore, Lârut as Laroote, Kriân as Carreean; but the various authorities in Malay, however they may differ on other points, have with one consent adopted the Continental or Italian system of vowels as best suited to the requirements of Malay; and the Committee have no hesitation in following them so far.

The following system they believe to be sufficiently accurate, and as simple as the circumstances of the case permit.