Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/26

12 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE always to change a broad sounding vowel into a more slender one. Maricho, pepper, becomes by this rule mariyos ; iiriyayi^ a chief, priyantan ; ka* yu, wood, becomes kojang ; Jowo, Java, becomes Ja'wi ; huloUy the west, becomes kilen ; and lor^ the north, becomes ler. Even the names of places are, in the most pro- voking and puzzling manner, subjected to the same changes. Often these are entire synonyms, and still more frequently literal translations of the compound- ed words, of which the names of places so often con- sist. In writing to a superior, for example, it would be thought ill bred to use the usual words Cheribony Garsik, or Solo, for the names of these towns. The inferior would call them respectively Grage, 2'andas, and Surakarta ; and were he to write BauyumaSf or the country of the golden wa- ter ^ the name of a beautiful prx)vince of the island, he would call it Toyojanne^ which means just the same thing ; while a still higher stretch of com- plaisance might induce him to give it the Sanskrit name of Tirto-kanchono, There are no bounds to the little ingenuity of flattery and adulation on this subject. Even the peasant exercises himself in it, but his efforts are often unsuccessful j and I have sometimes seen a smile excited in the chiefs, by the awkward flat* tery of their dependents. Some words are so stubborn as not to yield to the rules of this politi-