The word campo again in the Portuguese of the 16th century seems to mean always, or nearly always, a camp. We have found only one instance in those writers of its use with a meaning in the least suggestive of compound, but in this its real meaning is 'site': "queymou a cidade toda ate não ficar mais que ho campo em que estevera." ("They burned the whole city till nothing remained but the site on which it stood"—Castanheda, vi. 130). There is a special use of campo by the Portuguese in the Further East, alluded to in the quotation from Pallegoix's Siam, but that we shall see to be only a representation of the Malay Kampung. We shall come back upon it. [See quotation from Correa, with note, under [FACTORY].]
(c.) The objection raised to kampung as the origin of compound is chiefly that the former word is not so used in Java by either Dutch or natives, and the author of Max Havelaar expresses doubt if compound is a Malay or Javanese word at all (pp. 360-361). Erf is the usual word among the Dutch. In Java kampung seems to be used only for a native village, or for a particular ward or quarter of a town.
But it is impossible to doubt that among the English in our Malay settlements compound is used in this sense in speaking English, and kampung in speaking Malay. Kampung is also used by the Malays themselves, in our settlements, in this sense. All the modern dictionaries that we have consulted give this sense among others. The old Dictionarium Malaico-Latinum of David Haex (Romae, 1631) is a little vague:
"Campon, coniunctio, vel conuentus. Hinc viciniae et parua loca, campon etiam appellantur."
Crawfurd (1852): "Kampung ... an enclosure, a space fenced in; a village; a quarter or subdivision of a town."
Favre (1875): "Maison avec un terrain qui l'entoure."
Pijnappel (1875), Maleisch-Hollandisch Woordenboek: "Kampoeng—Omheind Erf, Wijk, Buurt, Kamp," i.e. "Ground hedged round, village, hamlet, camp."
And also, let it be noted, the Javanese Dict. of P. Jansz (Javaansch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek, Samarang, 1876): "Kampoeng—Omheind erf van Woningen; wijk die onder een hoofd staat," i.e. "Enclosed ground of dwellings; village which is under one Headman."
Marre, in his Kata-Kata Malayou (Paris, 1875), gives the following expanded definition: "Village palissadé, ou, dans une ville, quartier séparé et généralement clos, occupé par des gens de même nation, Malays, Siamois, Chinois, Bouguis, &c. Ce mot signifie proprement un enclos, une enciente, et par extension quartier clos, faubourg, ou village palissadé. Le mot Kampong désigne parfois aussi une maison d'une certaine importance avec le terrain clos qui en dépend, et qui l'entoure" (p. 95).
We take Marsden last (Malay Dictionary, 1812) because he gives an illustration: "Kampong, an enclosure, a place surrounded with a paling; a fenced or fortified village; a quarter, district, or suburb of a city; a collection of buildings. Mem-bûat [to make] rumah [house] serta dañgan [together with] kampong-nia [compound thereof], to erect a house with its enclosure ... Ber-Kampong, to assemble, come together; meñgampong, to collect, to bring together." The Reverse Dictionary gives: "Yard, alaman, Kampong." [See also many further references much to the same effect in Scott, Malayan Words, p. 123 seqq.]