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