Malay-English Vocabulary/Preface
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
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This vocabulary has been prepared for use in connection with my "Practical Malay Grammar." It was originally intended to incorporate with the Grammar an English-Malay and a Malay-English Vocabulary, each containing some three or four thousand words, but in view of the fact that most people require a vocabulary containing as large a number of words as possible and are subjected to much disappointment and annoyance when they find that their vocabulary does not contain just the very word which they require, it has been thought better to publish the vocabularies separately and to make them as complete as is consistent with the low price at which such works are expected to sell.
The list of words which is here offered to the public contains over six thousand words and phrases. In such a list it is of course impossible to include all the Malay words which may be met with in even a very limited range of Malay reading, and the student will no doubt meet with some expressions in conversation with Malays which will not be found in this vocabulary. Great care, however, has been taken in the selection of the words, and it is hoped that very few which are in common use or are likely to be needed by the student in the first two or three years of his study of the language have been omitted.
In this vocabulary, as in the "Practical Malay Grammar," the Malay words are printed in roman letters only. Comparatively few Europeans make any serious attempt to learn the Arabic character, and those who do will no doubt require a dictionary rather than a vocabulary. The omission of the Arabic characters has enabled the printers to put out this work in a very compact form and at a cost considerably below what it would otherwise have been.
The great defect of Malay vocabularies printed in the Roman character has always been the difficulty of finding many of the words owing to variations of spelling. This has been particularly the case in regard to the romanization of the short vowel sound, which even in the same work has been represented by different letters in different words, according to the derivation of the word or the fancy of the author, so that in many cases the student has had to hunt for a word in two or three different places before he has been able to find it.
This difficulty has been obviated in this work by the adoption of the same system of romanization which has been used in my Grammar and in all the other Malay publications of the Methodist Publishing House. Its peculiar feature is the entire omission of the short vowel. This makes it just as easy to find a word containing the short vowel as it is in a Malay dictionary printed in the Arabic character, for instead of having to look up such a word as nschaya or psaka under two or three different vowels, the student will be able to find it at once from the sound. It is believed that this will be found to be a very great advantage.
The introduction should be carefully studied by those who desire to make an intelligent use of this vocabulary. Part of the introduction has been reproduced from the Grammar, but there will also be found a large amount of entirely new matter explaining the use of prefixes and suffixes, the accentuation of Malay words, and the use and pronunciation of foreign words, etc. The student should not fail to make the fullest use of the Grammar, not only on account of the importance of thoroughly understanding the grammatical construction of the language, but also because he will otherwise be unable to profit by the frequent references made in the vocabulary to the numbers of the paragraphs in the Grammar, where fuller information will be found in regard to the use of certain words than could be given in a vocabulary.
Derived words will only be found under their roots. Owing to the immense number and variety of the derived forms in the Malay language, this is the only arrangement which is at all satisfactory, and has been adopted in all dictionaries and in one or two vocabularies. At first the student will no doubt have some difficulty in finding out what is the root of some of the derivatives, and it will be necessary for him to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the use of prefixes and affixes; this, however, will be found to be a blessing in disguise, for it is impossible to read or speak the Malay language intelligently without a thorough understanding of the derived forms.
An appendix containing lists of English words with their Malay equivalents has been added. The vocabulary itself contains many similar lists; for instance a list of the different classes of workmen will be found under tukang, a list of the classifiers or numeral coefficients under s-, cloths under kain, stones under batu, etc. The lists of nautical terms and diseases should be of special use to sailors and doctors respectively, and housekeepers will find a very complete list of foods and household terms.
In the preparation of this vocabulary I am particularly indebted to Favre's Malay-French Dictionary and to Klinkert's Malay-Dutch Pocket Dictionary. When in doubt as to the precise meaning of a word I have occasionally referred to Wilkinson's Dictionary, Part I, but as the second part has not yet been published this work has only been referred to in regard to such words as come in the first half of the Malay alphabet. My list of words has been compared with other vocabularies in order to ensure that no important word has been omitted. Several alterations and additions have been made at the suggestion of Dr. Luering, and my thanks are due to him for the valuable assistance which he has rendered me by reading and criticising the manuscript previous to publication.
Singapore, July, 1902.
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The demand for a new edition of this vocabulary has enabled me to correct a few errors which crept into the first edition, and to add a number of words which, though not in frequent use, are liable to be met with by the student.
An attempt has also been made in this edition to indicate words- which are peculiar to the Malay spoken by the "Babas," or Straits-born Chinese, and some of their differences of pronunciation. The difference between Baba Malay, and the language as it is spoken by the Malays themselves, consists, however, not merely in such variations as can be shown in a vocabulary. There is a radical difference in the structure of the sentences. For the most part the same words are used, but the idiom is different, and would require a more thorough elucidation than could be given in the introduction to a vocabulary. It is hoped, however, that the Baba Malay words here given, marked (B.), will help to explain some of the peculiarities of pronunciation met with in the Settlements, where Chinese influence predominates.
Singapore, July, 1912.