The subject is a difficult one. Marsden, Crawfurd and Logan have failed to find a satisfactory settlement of it, but I do not think that the last word on it has yet been said. The following remarks on the transliteration and pronunciation of Malay words are offered to the Society with the view of drawing the attention of the Council to the advisability of the adoption for literary and scientific purposes of some better systein of rendering Malay words in Roman lottors than that hitherto recommended.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
There are two objects to be kept in view in deciding upon a system by which to render Malay in Roman characters:—
1st. To obtain a faithful transliteration of the Malay character.
2nd. To clothe the words in such a form that they may be pronounced correctly by an English reader.
The first regards letters before sounds, the second regards sounds before letters.
Either of these objects may be attained separately, but to combine both without perplexing the reader is more difficult of accomplishment. If the reproduction in some form or other of native letters (for some of which the English alphabet has no equivalent) is too exclusively attended to, the result may sometimes be a word which is difficult of pronunciation to the uninitiated. Crawfurd claims the advantage of simplicity for his system, yet few persons probably would recognise in S’ex[1] the common Arabic word Sheikh. On the other hand, if the system be purely phonetic, the ear must be entirely depended on; sounds which nearly approach each other will be mistaken one for another, and persons professing to use the same system will very likely spell words differently.
Another important point must be borne in mind, Malay contains a large number of pure Sanskrit and Arabic words; it is necessary, therefore, to avoid any serious departure from the principles sanctioned by European scholarship of transliterating those languages. Any system of spelling Malay would be discredited
- ↑ Crawfurd's Dictionary
