Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/77



10. A table of Consonants is given below with their respective sounds, and their Malay equivalents. It will be observed that "c," "g" soft, and "q" are omitted, and they should never be employed in writing Oriental languages in Roman characters, as their sound is better represented by "s," "j," "k," respectively, and the use of them has led to strange mistakes. An instance of this is the name of Kedah, which having been spelt "Quedah," has come to be pronounced "Kwîdah."

11. It is important to remember that whenever the letters "ng" occur together they represent one letter only, and that letter has uniformly the sound of "ng" in "singing," not that of "ng" either in "single" or in "singed." Whenever it is intended that the "g" should be sounded hard, as in "single," the word must be written with a second "g" as "Sûnggoh" "Trenggânu." The letters "w" and "y" are only used as Consonants.

12. The final "k" in Malay words is usually silent in the Straits Settlements and the Malay Peninsula; or rather it is only partially sounded, being begun and then stopped suddenly.

18. The apostrophe (’) represents the Malay mark "hamza" (ء). When it occurs in the middle of a word, as in "sa‘orang,” it serves as a mark of separation between syllables; at the end of a word it has the same effect as the final "k."

14. Some of the Consonants are written, like the vowels representing ع (ain), with a dot beneath. This is the case where two or more letters in the Malay Alphabet are represented by one Roman character. Almost all the characters bearing this mark are confined to words of Arabic origin, such as a certain number of proper names, and words connected with Religion. Their use therefore will be limited, the great bulk of words in the Malay language being written in the simpler characters.

15. We can now give the table of Consonants which will actually be used. Whenever nothing is said respecting pronunciation the letter has the ordinary English sound.