CHAPTER 10.
LANGUAGES.
MALAYAN.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED.
LANGUAGES OF THE INTERIOR PEOPLE.
PECULIAR CHARACTERS.
SPECIMENS OF LANGUAGES AND OF ALPHABETS.
LANGUAGES.
Before I proceed to an account of the laws, customs, and manners of the people of the island it is necessary that I should say something of the different languages spoken on it, the diversity of which has been the subject of much contemplation and conjecture.
MALAYAN.
The Malayan language, which has commonly been supposed original in the peninsula of Malayo, and from thence to have extended itself throughout the eastern islands, so as to become the lingua franca of that part of the globe, is spoken everywhere along the coasts of Sumatra, prevails without the mixture of any other in the inland country of Menangkabau and its immediate dependencies, and is understood in almost every part of the island. It has been much celebrated, and justly, for the smoothness and sweetness of its sound, which have gained it the appellation of the Italian of the East. This is owing to the prevalence of vowels and liquids in the words (with many nasals which may be thought an objection) and the infrequency of any harsh combination of mute consonants. These qualities render it well adapted to poetry, which the Malays are passionately addicted to.
SONGS.
They amuse all their leisure hours, including the greater portion of their lives, with the repetition of songs which are, for the most part, proverbs illustrated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of life. Some that they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, at their bimbangs or feasts, are historical love tales like our old English ballads, and are often extemporaneous productions. An example of the former species is as follows:
Apa guna passang palita,
Kallo tidah dangan sumbu'nia?
Apa guna bermine matta,
Kalla tidah dangan sunggu'nia?
What signifies attempting to light a lamp,
If the wick be wanting?
What signifies playing with the eyes,
If nothing in earnest be intended?
It must be observed however that it often proves a very difficult matter to trace the connexion between the figurative and the literal sense of the stanza. The essentials in the composition of the pantun, for such these little pieces are called, the longer being called dendang, are the rhythmus and the figure, particularly the latter, which they consider as the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta katta saja"--mere conversation; meaning that it was destitute of the quaint and figurative expressions which adorn their own poetry. Their language in common speaking is proverbial and sententious. If a young woman prove with child before marriage they observe it is daulu buah, kadian bunga--the fruit before the flower. Hearing of a person's death they say, nen matti, matti; nen idup, bekraja: kallo sampi janji'nia, apa buli buat?--Those who are dead, are dead; those who survive must work: if his allotted time was expired, what resource is there? The latter phrase they always make use of to express their sense of inevitability, and has more force than any translation of it I can employ.
ARABIC CHARACTER USED BY MALAYS.
Their writing is in the Arabic character, with modifications to adapt that alphabet to their language, and, in consequence of the adoption of their religion from the same quarter, a great number of Arabic words are incorporated with the Malayan. The Portuguese too have furnished them with several terms, chiefly for such ideas as they have acquired since the period of European discoveries to the eastward. They write on paper, using ink of their own composition, with pens made of the twig of the anau tree. I could never discover that the Malays had any original written characters peculiar to themselves before they acquired those now in use; but it is possible that such might have been lost, a fate that may hereafter attend the Batta, Rejang, and others of Sumatra, on which the Arabic daily makes encroachments. Yet I have had frequent occasion to observe the former language written by inland people in the country character; which would indicate that the speech is likely to perish first. The Malayan books are very numerous, both in prose and verse. Many of them are commentaries on the koran, and others romances or heroic tales.
The purest or most elegant Malayan is said, and with great appearance of reason, to be spoken at Malacca. It differs from the dialect used in Sumatra chiefly in this, that words, in the latter, made to terminate in "o," are in the former, sounded as ending in "a." Thus they pronounce lada (pepper) instead of lado. Those words which end with "k" in writing, are, in Sumatra, always softened in speaking, by omitting it; as tabbe bannia, many compliments, for tabbek banniak; but the Malaccans, and especially the more eastern people, who speak a very broad dialect, give them generally the full sound. The personal pronouns also differ materially in the respective countries.
Attempts have been made to compose a grammar of this tongue upon the principles on which those of the European languages are formed. But the inutility of such productions is obvious. Where there is no inflexion of either nouns or verbs there can be no cases, declensions, moods, or conjugations. All this is performed by the addition of certain words expressive of a determinate meaning, which should not be considered as mere auxiliaries, or as particles subservient to other words. Thus, in the instance of rumah, a house; deri pada rumah signifies from a house; but it would be talking without use or meaning to say that deri pada is the sign of the ablative case of that noun, for then every preposition should equally require an appropriate case, and as well as of, to, and from, we should have a case for deatas rumah, on top of the house. So of verbs: kallo saya buli jalan, If I could walk: this may be termed the preter-imperfect tense of the subjunctive or potential mood of the verb jalan; whereas it is in fact a sentence of which jalan, buli, etc. are constituent words. It is improper, I say, to talk of the case of a noun which does not change its termination, or the mood of a verb which does not alter its form. A useful set of observations might be collected for speaking the language with correctness and propriety, but they must be independent of the technical rules of languages founded on different principles.*
(*Footnote. I have ventured to make this attempt, and have also prepared a Dictionary of the language which it is my intention to print with as little delay as circUmstances will admit.)
INTERIOR PEOPLE USE LANGUAGES DIFFERENT FROM THE MALAYAN.
Beside the Malayan there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra which however have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but also to that general language which is found to prevail in, and to be indigenous to all the islands of the eastern sea; from Madagascar to the remotest of Captain Cook's discoveries; comprehending a wider extent than the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. Indisputable examples of this connexion and similarity I have exhibited in a paper which the Society of Antiquaries have done me the honour to publish in their Archaeologia, Volume 6. In different places it has been more or less mixed and corrupted, but between the most dissimilar branches an evident sameness of many radical words is apparent, and in some, very distant from each other in point of situation, as for instance the Philippines and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observed in the dialects of neighbouring provinces of the same kingdom. To render this comparison of languages more extensive, and if possible to bring all those spoken throughout the world into one point of view, is an object of which I have never lost sight, but my hopes of completing such a work are by no means sanguine.
PECULIAR WRITTEN CHARACTERS.
The principal of these Sumatran languages are the Botta, the Rejang, and the Lampong, whose difference is marked not so much by the want of correspondence in the terms as by the circumstance of their being expressed in distinct and peculiar written characters. But whether this apparent difference be radical and essential, or only produced by accident and the lapse of time, may be thought to admit of doubt; and, in order that the reader may be enabled to form his own judgment, a plate containing the Alphabetical characters of each, with the mode of applying the orthographical marks to those of the Rejang language in particular, is annexed. It would indeed be extraordinary, and perhaps singular in the history of human improvement, that divisions of people in the same island, with equal claims to originality, in stages of civilization nearly equal, and speaking languages derived from the same source, should employ characters different from each other, as well as from the rest of the world. It will be found however that the alphabet used in the neighbouring island of Java (given by Corneille Le Brun), that used by the Tagala people of the Philippines (given by Thevenot), and by the Bugis people of Celebes (given by Captain Forrest), vary at least as much from these and from each other as the Rejang from the Batta. The Sanskrit scholar will at the same time perceive in several of them an analogy to the rhythmical arrangement, terminating with a nasal, which distinguishes the alphabet of that ancient language whose influence is known to have been extensive in this quarter. In the country of Achin, where the language differs considerably from the Malayan, the Arabic character has nevertheless been adopted, and on this account it has less claim to originality.
ON BARK OF TREES AND BAMBOO.
Their manuscripts of any bulk and importance are written with ink of their own making on the inner bark of a tree cut into slips of several feet in length and folded together in squares; each square or fold answering to a page or leaf. For more common occasions they write on the outer coat of a joint of bamboo, sometimes whole but generally split into pieces of two or three inches in breadth, with the point of the weapon worn at their side, which serves the purpose of a stylus; and these writings, or scratchings rather, are often performed with a considerable degree of neatness. Thus the Chinese also are said by their historians to have written on pieces of bamboo before they invented paper. Of both kinds of manuscript I have many specimens in my possession. The lines are formed from the left hand towards the right, contrary to the practice of the Malays and the Arabians.
In Java, Siam, and other parts of the East, beside the common language of the country, there is established a court language spoken by persons of rank only; a distinction invented for the purpose of keeping the vulgar at a distance, and inspiring them with respect for what they do not understand. The Malays also have their bhasa dalam, or courtly style, which contains a number of expressions not familiarly used in common conversation or writing, but yet by no means constituting a separate language, any more than, in English, the elevated style of our poets and historians. Amongst the inhabitants of Sumatra in general disparity of condition is not attended with much ceremonious distance of behaviour between the persons.
