n ‘may be compared with the superdental represented in English by the same sign when written before a d though it is a little more distinctly pronounced, i.c. more with the top of the tongue’.
l not quite identical with the English sound. What the English write with the same sign seems very often to be a superpalatal (lingual or cerebral), i.e. a consonant formed at the higher part of the palate with the tongue turned backward, the top pressed with its full breadth against the roof of the palate. The Malay l is produced at the lower part of the palate like what the Dutch write l, when pronounced by well-bred people.' Elsewhere, Dr. Fokker compares it with l in hill-top not in hill.
(d) Labial class.
w (not expressed in the system of romanizing employed in this grammar) as in coward, power, sower; the semi-vowel unexpressed between words like rue it or in a word like dual.
b as in English boot, bean, tub.
p as in English: pig, pup, pant.
m as in English.
§ 10. Vowels.
Broadly the vowels in Malay are:
a as in langit, api, kayu, ratus.
e as in bela.
i as in ingin.
o as in gopoh.
u as in kayu.
ě as in ĕnam.
and these are the only vowel sounds which will be distinguished in the body of this grammar, though a work on phonetics would make further distinctions and mark them by means of accents. The problem of definition is increased by the great
