PREFACE
Tins grammar was commenced to supply the want of a text-book for the second or higher examination in the Malay language, prescribed for officials.
In English there are no books in print dealing with the subject except Maxwell's Malay Manual, which is not strictly a grammar, and Shellabear's Practical Malay Grammar (printed in Singapore), which is quite elementary. This book will in no way supplant or interfere with those. Out of print are Crawfurd's Grammar, which among scholars hardly counts, and Marsden's, which so far as it goes is excellent, but it is a century behind modern research.
In Dutch there are several standard works, to which I owe a great debt, especially the grammars of Gerth van Wijk, Tendeloo, Spat, and van Ophuijsen; but Dutch is an insuperable obstacle for the casual student of Malay in the Peninsula. I too must ask forgiveness, if the refraction of an unfamiliar language has led me anywhere to distort the views of authorities I have quoted or criticized.
Arrangement is a difficult problem in Malay grammar. Before the chapter on Affixation it is desirable to deal with the simple forms of such parts of speech as will recur in that chapter as derivatives; and it is also important to deal with the radical form of the verb and then without a break to
