Comparative Vocabulary of the Barma, Malayu and Thai Languages

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Comparative Vocabulary of the Barma, Malayu and Thai Languages (1810)
dikarang oleh John Leyden

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3796Comparative Vocabulary of the Barma, Malayu and Thai Languages1810John Leyden

A

COMPARATIVE

VOCABULARY

OF THE

BARMA, MALÁYU and THÁI

LANGUAGES.

SERAMPORE,

PRINTED AT THE MISSION PRESS.

1810.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

To this Comparative Vocabulary of the Barma, Maláyu, and T'hái languages, commonly denominated Birman, Malay, and Siamese, the compiler deems it proper to premise a few observations concerning the nature and object of the work. Its immediate object is to facilitate the compilation of a series of Comparative Vocabularies of the languages of the Indo-Chinese nations, and of the tribes which inhabit the Eastern isles. Its plan is only an extension of the method formerly adopted by the Supreme Government of India, at the recommendation of the Council of the College of Fort William, for the purpose of procuring comparative Vocabularies of the Provincial languages and dialects of India. After one series of Vocabularies in Persic and Hindustani, and another in Sanscrit and Bengáli, had been printed and circulated for that purpose, in Bengal and Hindustan, it was deemed adviseable to print and circulate another in the Birman and Malay languages, for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of comparative vocabularies of the languages spoken by the nations between India and China, and in the Eastern isles. In this last series, it appeared proper to adhere as closely to the arrangement of the former Vocabularies, as the genius and structure of the languages permitted, but, from the small number of Europeans accustomed to read these languages, in the native character, it was thought absolutely neces sary to add the significations of the different words, in English, to obviate, as far as possible, the danger of mistake, a precaution which was not thought necessary in the former vocabularies. For the sake of reference, the series of vocables is numbered from the beginning to the end; and as a spare column still remained in the page, it was thought, that the object of the work might be in some degree facilitated, by occupying that column with the Siamese or T'hái language. As no types of the Siamese character have hither to been cut, it was necessary to insert the vocables of this language in the Roman character. In this part of the work, the orthography which has been generally followed is that of Sir W. Jones; but it has been followed with some minute deviations, chiefly occasioned by the excessive difficulty of printing so various a page. Of these, the most important is the omission of some of the accents, as in representing the greater part of the nasals by ng, in the end of a word. The letter k, is likewise very generally used for c, as it appears in the alphabetical arrangement of Sir W. Jones. The Italian u, is also used to denote the French u, which is very frequent in the Siamese language. The most material defect, however is the omission of the Signs of the Siamese tones, which in general correspond to those of the Chinese language; and this omission was occasioned by the same cause as that of the accents already mentioned. In using the Siamese vocabulary, this defect is chiefly to be guarded against. In the Barma and Maláyu Series, the most usual native orthography has been generally adopted. In several instances, however, in which it appeared to be very likely to lead to mistakes, a less common orthography, has been used, which in general is more auricular than the other, but which, with a few exceptions, may be found in some Manuscripts. In words of Arabic and Sanscrit origin, the form of orthography most analogous to that of the original language, hasbeen generally adopted.

In using this Vocabulary, the greatest caution will be necessary with regard to the adjectives, verbs, pronouns, and particles, as the offices of all these parts of speech are often performed by the same substantives, in almost all the Indo-Chinese and East-insular languages. The greatest care however is required with respect to the PARTICLES, as it is chiefly on these, that the difficulties these languages depend.

In collecting Vocabularies, the original purpose of this compilation will be best answered, by preferring on all occasions, and in almost every language, the native term, though it may happen to be vulgar, to a more polite term, if it happen to be of foreign origin; for by these means the series of vocabularies will best tend to illustrate the history of the Eastern tribes.

In those languages, which have received a considerable degree of cultivation in composition, such as the MÓN, or original language of Pegu, the ANAM, or language of Cochin-China, the JAVANESE, the BATTA of Sumatra, the BUGIS or UGI and the MACASAR languages of Celebes, the BALI, or peculiar language of the island of Bali, the TA-GALA language of the Philippines, and the JAPANESE, LIU-KIU, and FORMOSAN languages, it will be desirable to have, if possible, both the more ancient, and the more modern, the more learned, and the more vulgar names. There are likewise a number of terms which it is desirable to procure, but which vary entirely in different nations; such as the names of Measures of weight or dimension, Measures of time, &c. In some cases too, terms of art and science should be obtained, if possible; as the terms of Navigation, and in some instances, those of Astronomy, Grammar, &c. Of the same description, are all terms of MYTHOLOGY, as the names of local appellations of the Gods, demigods, heroes, angels, dæmons, and the different kinds of spiritual beings in which these tribes believe; the different terms of worship and religious ceremony, sorcery and divination. To accomplish this, with any kind of accuracy, however, a degree, of investigation may be necessary: and it is particularly desirable that this investigation should be applied to the mythological opinions of the Eastern Islanders and mountain tribes on the continent.

To the ancient religion of the Bugis and Macásar nations before they embraced Islamism, to the present religion of the island of Bali, to the present religion of the greater part of the inhabitants of Ceram, Goram, Banda, and the great island Halamahera or Gilolo, and in general to the language, the religious habits and opinions of the rude people scattered over the eastern isles, and denominated Alfoers or Harafuras, it is necessary in a particular manner to direct the public attention. Though the Gala or Ta-Gala language of Manilla has been successfully cultivated by the Spaniards of Manilla, yet little attention has hitherto been paid by Europeans to the Bisaya, Pampango, Lanún, and Mandanáwi languages. Though the Ta-Gala language has been cultivated, in composition yet they have neither collected the ancient books, nor investigated the ancient religion of these islanders.

But besides these desiderata, one of no common magnitude remains, which relates to the Papúas or oriental negroes. Of the languages of this singular race we have no specimens whatever, which can be depended on; nor have we any observations which throw the least light on their religions or mythological system.

In those languages which have a written character, a fair copy of the alphabet, as used by the particular tribe, together with the numerical figures, is of the first importance. As several of the eastern tribes have, at different periods of their history, employed different written characters, specimens taken from ancient monuments are extremely to be desiderated. Ancient written monuments are chiefly to be expected, on the Indo-Chinese continent, among the tribes of Aracan, Siam, and Laos, as these countries are generally denominated, instead of Rakheng, T'hái, and Láw. Among the eastern islands they are known to exist in the interior of Sumatra, Java and Celebes, but it is not known if they are to be found in any other quarter. One might perhaps expect them in the great island of Borneo, but it does not appear that any of the native tribes of Borneo have ever attained any high degree of civilization, and, at all events, we are at present equally ignorant of their languages and their habits. The languages of the Tadong tribe on the coast of Borneo, of the Bajáw tribe of sea-rovers supposed to be of Macasar origin, of the TA-RAJA tribe in Celebes, of the islanders of Ternate and Tidore, and of the brave people of Maba; on the east of Gilolo, deserve particular attention. Among the East-insular languages, the list of those. which are very imperfectly known, is extremely numerous; and from the general use of common Malay, as a lingua franca, for a long period no progress has been made in their investigation. As excellent opportunities are almost daily lost, which would not have. been neglected, had they been deemed of importance, it may be proper to specify a few more languages, the vocabularies of which are still desiderated, in addition to those which have been already mentioned:

In Sumatra, the Batta, the Lampúng, the Achi and the Menangkabow languages, and also those of the Néas, Pogy, and Nicobar islands. In Java, the two great Javanese languages, denominated the exterior and the interior, and the peculiarities of their poetical style. In Celebes, the Macasar and Ugi languages, and the peculiarities of their poetical style. The Bima and Sambawa languages. The language of Súlú. On the Continent, specimens of the Rambáw language, which is used inland of Malacca, are desiderated; also the languages of the Jokong, Samang Daya, Bila and other negro tribes of the interior of the Malayan peninsula, generally termed orang benúa. The languages of the Món of Pegu, of the K'hamén of Camboja, and of a great variety of mountaineer tribes, are also desiderated. The language of Timor and the adjacent islands. As forming connecting links of a great chain, the languages of the South Sea islands will all claim a high interest, particularly those of the Pelew islands, and of the Feejee islands, with the Mauri, and Ngapuhi, languages of New Zealand. From the imperfect state of our knowledge on almost all these points, every communication becomes interesting, and would be highly acceptable to the Council of the College of Fort William.

For facilitating labours of this sort, it has been the object of the compiler to select the most useful list of vocables, and arrange them in the order that they may best illustrate each other. In a first work of this nature, to escape every species of inaccuracy is hopeless, and in this instance, it has not even been found practicable altogether to avoid repetitions. In several instances, however, what may seem repetition, in one of the languages, has been admitted for the purpose of illustrating some peculiarity in another.

In order to facilitate the use of this Vocabulary the Barman and Maláyu alphabets are subjoined.

The Barma Alphabet.

Series of Vowels.

အa, အာ ။á ဣi, ဤ ။í ဥိu, ဦ ။ú အေe, အဲ ။é သြောo, သြော် ။ó

Series of Consonants.

ကka ခk'ha ဂga ဃgha င ။ngha စtsa ဆts'ha ဇza ဈz'ha ည ။ngéa ဋta ဌt'ha ဍda ဎd'ha ဏ ။nna

B

တta ထt'ha ဒda ဓd'ha န ။na ပpa ဖp'ha ဗba ဘb'ha မ ။ma ယya ရra လla ဝwa သt'ha sa^[1] ဟha ဠlla အ ။a

ကမဒူ

Table of Consonants with the Conjunct Vowels.

333 ka

ká

ကေ ကဲ ke

ké

ကု ကူ ki

kí

ku

ကော ကော် ko

kó

kú

ကိ ကား kaa, kalı

ခေ ခဲ

ລໍ ລ:

ဂါ

오요

ဂေဂဲ

ဂဝါး

‫כש ש‬

255 ဃောဃော်

25 0: CC IL

ငေငဲ

ငံ ငါး LIL

စေ စဲ

စောစော်

↑ This letter has generally the sound of tha, in the English word thank, but it sometimes is pronounced sa.

[1] This letter has generally the sound of tha, in the English word thank, but it sometimes is pronounced sa.

[1]