English-Sulu-Malay Vocabulary/Preface
PREFACE.
The whole of the Sūlū portion of this work is original. It is the result of the labour of my late brother Andson, who devoted much time to the study of several native dialects during the thirteen years he resided in the Island of Sūlū and varions parts of Malaya. That he attained an unusual proficiency in the Sūlū and Malay languages is well known, and his voluminous notes in my possession are evidence of the careful investigation which he bestowed upon the Sūlū before placing it against its English and Malay equivalents. All the inaccuracies and literary imperfections to be met with in these pages are attributable to my shortcomings; however, as I did not undertake the editing of this volume from choice, but from a sense of duty. I trust to the indulgence of critics and those for whose benefit it is intended. The idiomatie Phrases and Sentences have been constructed to employ nearly every Sūlū word in the vocabulary. The Author's object in adding Malay, to what he originally designed as a Sūlū work only, was to accelerate the further fusion of two dialects which have so much affinity and which will make the language of North Borneo the English of the farther Fast.
I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Marsden's Dictionary of the Malay Language, and to Maxwell's Manual of the Malay Language for material and information which have aided me in constructing the Malay part of the Introduction. From a small Sūlū vocabulary,[1] by my esteemed friend Mr. Thomas Henry Haynes, I have adopted a few nautical terms.
Hurst Villa, Brockley,
London, S.E.
September 19th, 1893.
Note: Mr. Andson Cowie died in Arbroath, Scotland, February 29th, 1888, at the early age of thirty-two.
- ↑ The vocabulary referred to was edited by the Hon'ble W. E. Maxwell, C.M.G., and printed by the Straits Branch of the Asiatic Society for circulation amongst its members.