A SCHEME FOR REPRESENTING MALAYAN SOUNDS BY ROMAN LETTERS.
By John Crawfurd, Esq., F.R.S.
Sir William Jones well-known scheme for representing Asiatic sounds by Roman letters seems to me to be chiefly defective from at- tempting more than was practicable. Its basis was the Dewanagri alphabet, and the Arabic, but other Asiatic languages contain sounds not to be found in either, and such an alphabet as would comprehend the whole of them would, I am satisfied, extend to at least 100 cha- racters, and therefore be of intolerable length and prolixity.
Every language, or at least every class of languages requires, in my opinion, a system for itself, and if the native alphabet assumed as a basis be comprehensive and correct, that is, have an invariable character for every sound in the language, and such character is re- presented by an unvarying Roman letter, the task is at once accom- plished. Such a scheme necessarily excludes the use of double let- ters to represent a simple sound, both as cumbrous and superfluous.
The languages of the Archipelago, in so far as the native portion of them is concerned, contain no sounds that do not equally exist in the European languages, and which therefore, with very slight mo- difications may not be easily represented by single Roman letters. The Javanese alphabet, the most perfect of those of the Archipelago, has written characters, not only for every sound in the Javanese lan- guage, but also for all the sounds in the other languages, with a few exceptions easily provided for.
Taking, then, the Javanese alphabet as the foundation of the scheme, the consonants will be 22 in number, and as follows, b. c. d. ḋ. f. g. h. j. k. l. m. n. ṅ. ñ. p. r. s. t. ṫ. w. y. z. The letters b. k. l. m. n. p. 1. and s. having exactly the same sounds as in most of the European languages, require no remarks, except that a final k., and sometimes a. medial, are, in Malay and sometimes in Javanese, pronounced as if they were mere aspirates.
The letter c. being redundant in the English system, and in it or the other languages, having, according to its position, two or more different sounds, I have selected it to represent a consonant for which there is a written character in nearly all the eastern alphabets. The sound is also of frequent occurrence in the European languages, but aukwardly represented by two or three consonants combined, and
