The five vowels have the continental sounds:―
a as in father o as in hole e as the ey in they u as in rude i as in ravine
In addition to the above sounds, there is in the Hok-kien and Hak-ka dialects, as well as in Malay, another simple vowel sound which is often called "the short vowel sound," In other systems of romanisation this vowel sound has been variously represented by a a e ě u and u but all of these different methods of representing this vowel sound are open to the great ohjection that they mislead both Europeans and natives into giving it an incorrect pronunciation. Experience has shown that the best way to spell words containing the short vowel sound with a view to helping the reader to a correct pronunciation, is to omit the vowel altogether. The exact sound of this "short vowel" can best he learnt by ear; it does not occur in any English word of one syllable, but is almost identical with the half-vowel sound in the first syllable of such words as "machine" and "balloon."
In Hok-kien Chinese, the short vowel occurs chiefly in words ending in ng, such as sng, kng, etc. It is also found in ng.
In the Hak-ka dialect the m sound occurs, and the short vowel is also found in the pecu- liar sounds represented by s, ts, and ths and in the nasal ng.
In Malay, when two consonants come together without a vowel between, the first consonant must be considered as having the short or inherent vowel sound, and is therefore sounded separately, as, l-kas, t-pi, b-bal, etc. The double consonants ch, kh and sh are of course exceptions to this rule, as they stand for single sounds. Where the single consonants k and h, or s and h would come together, the vowel a is inserted to avoid confusion with the double consonants kh, sh, as in kahandak, sahaja, etc. When three consonants come together, the first two usually form a closed syllable, and the third commences the second syllable, as in the words mm-baik-i, rn-dah, pn-ja-ra; in a few cases, however, each consonant must be given its inherent vowel sound, as, m-l-top p-n-bus, s-d-kah, but such words are so few in number that they present very little difficulty.
In regard to the vowels a e i o and u, it may be remarked that in the two Chinese dialects as well as in Malay, the vowel sound has always a greater degree of intensity in open syllables than in closed syllables. For instance the a in ta is a much harder or heavier sound than the a in tan. In the Malay word gigit the i in gi has a stronger sound than in the second syllable git. Similarly in the words bodoh and turut there is more stress on the open syllables bo and tu than on the closed syllables doh and rut. Whereas in such words as pada, gigi, jodo, and susu, there is an equally heavy stress on both syllables and so also in such words as panjang, chinchin, pondok and bungkus, where both syllables are closed, the stress is equal on the two syllables, but is much lighter than in open syllables, and the vowel therefore appears to have a shorter sound.
English-speaking persons have a strong tendency to mispronounce the a sound described above, by giving it the short English sound; for instance, one often hears the Malay word api pronounced something like the English word "happy," only without the
