‘ain, a strong guttural commonly pronounced as ordinary A, e.g. adat. In some Roman systems it is represented by AA or ‘A, e.g. maana, ‘adat.
Ghain, GH pronounced as a burred R, e.g. ghaib, raib, maghrib, mashghul.
Fa = F, pronounced as P by Malays, e.g. paham, arip.
Kâf, a deep faucal K, in Malay ordinary K.
These sounds need not trouble the beginner in Malay nor indeed the advanced student much. The Arabic characters will be found in the Appendix.
Accent.
There is no strong accent on any syllable in a Malay word.
Ordinarily the stress, such as it is, falls on the penultimate, i.e. the last syllable but one; the only important exception being that when the penultimate is Ĕ in an open syllable and rarely in a closed, then the stress falls on the last syllable, e.g. sĕrì, ěnám, ĕntàh, ĕmpàt.
In words built up of suffixes, e.g. chakap, chakapan, tahu, kětahuï, kereta-nya, the root keeps its original stress and the new penultimate is prolonged-except that when the suffix -kan is placed after a stem ending in a consonant, no prolongation takes place, e.g. tampalkan, tuangkan.
THE ARTICLE.
I. There is no article definite or indefinite in Malay.
Sungai the river, a river; rumah the house, a house; kuching the cat, a cat; pengail the fisherman, a fisherman; sahaya buat rumah I build a house; sahaya tangkap ikan I caught a fish; lebar-lah sungai the river is broad; busok-lah ikan (all) the fish is rotten; jahat-nya budak the naughtiness of the boys; lihat kuasa Tuhan behold the power of the Lord.
II. There are a few seeming exceptions :—
(a) When it is desired to indicate particular objects, the place of the definite article is taken by the demonstrative pronouns ini this here and itu that yonder.
