PRONUNCIATION AND ORTHOGRAPHY.
For writing their own language the Malays have borrowed their characters from the Arabs. Those who intend to make a thorough study of the Malay language and literature will therefore find it necessary to learn to read the Arabic character. But for the majority of those who wish to learn the rudiments of the Malay language the difficulty of obtaining any fluency in reading a new character often appears so great as even to discourage them from making a beginning. For this reason the Malay words in this grammar are all printed in Roman letters. The system of romanising adopted is the same as has been used in Shellabear's Vocabulary, the Triglot Vocabulary, the Straits Vocabulary, Straits Dialogues, Malay and English School Primer, and all the other Malay publications of the Methodist Publishing House. This system is essentially the same as that which has been universally adopted for romanising the Amoy and Swatow and other dialects of the Chinese language.
Vowels.
The five vowels have the continental sounds:―
a as in father. o as in hole. e as the ey in they. u as in rude. i as in ravine.
In addition to the above there is in Malay, as in nearly all oriental languages, another simple vowel sound which is often called “the short vowel sound.” In the different systems of romanising, this short vowel sound has been variously represented by a, ǎ, e, ě, u, and ŭ, but all of these different methods of representing this vowel sound are open to the great objection that they mislead both Europeans and natives into giving it an incorrect pronunciation. Experience has shown that the best way to spell words containing the short vowel sound, with a view to helping the student to a correct pronunciation, is to omit the vowel altogether. This omission of the short vowel is the peculiar feature of the system of romanising used in this grammar. The exact sound of this "short vowel" can only be learnt by ear; it does not occur in any English word of one syllable, but is almost identical with the half-vowel sound in the first syllable of such words as “machine,” and “balloon.” When two consonants come together without a vowel between,
