Its peculiar feature is the entire omission of the short vowel. This makes it just as easy to find a word containing the short vowel as it is in a Malay dictionary printed in the Arabic character, for instead of having to look up such a word as nschaya or psaka under two or three different vowels, the student will be able to find it at once from the sound. It is believed that this will be found to be a very great advantage.
The introduction should be carefully studied by those who desire to make an intelligent use of this vocabulary. Part of the introduction has been reproduced from the Grammar, but there will also be found a large amount of entirely new matter explaining the use of prefixes and suffixes, the accentuation of Malay words, and the use and pronunciation of foreign words, etc. The student should not fail to make the fullest use of the Grammar, not only on account of the importance of thoroughly understanding the grammatical construction of the language, but also because he will otherwise be unable to profit by the frequent references made in the vocabulary to the numbers of the paragraphs in the Grammar, where fuller information will be found in regard to the use of certain words than could be given in a vocabulary.
Derived words will only be found under their roots. Owing to the immense number and variety of the derived forms in the Malay language, this is the only arrangement which is at all satisfactory, and has been adopted in all dictionaries and in one or two vocabularies. At first the student will no doubt have some difficulty in finding out what is the root of some of the derivatives, and it will be necessary for him to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the use of prefixes and affixes; this, however, will be found to be a blessing in disguise, for it is impossible to read or speak the Malay language intelligently without a thorough understanding of the derived forms.
An appendix containing lists of English words with their Malay equivalents has been added. The vocabulary itself contains many similar lists; for instance a list of the different classes of workmen will be found under tukang, a list of the classifiers or numeral coefficients under s-, cloths under kain, stones under batu, etc. The lists of nautical terms and diseases should be of special use to sailors and doctors respectively, and housekeepers will find a very complete list of foods and household terms.
In the preparation of this vocabulary I am particularly indebted to Favre's Malay-French Dictionary and to Klinkert's Malay-Dutch Pocket Dictionary. When in doubt as to the precise meaning of a word I have occasionally referred to Wilkinson's Dictionary, Part I, but as the second part has not yet been published this work has only been referred to in regard to such words as come in the first half of the Malay alphabet. My list of words has been compared with other vocabularies in order to ensure that no important word has been omitted. Several alterations and additions have been made at the
