Indonesian Linguistigs

Hsiatic Society flDonoorapto VOL. XV AN INTRODUGTION TO INDONESIAN LINGUISTIGS BEING FOUR ESSAYS BY REN WARD BRANDSTETTER, Ph.D. TRANSLATED BY C. O. BLAGDEN, M.A., M.R.A.S. LONDON PUBLISHED BY THE ROYAL ASIATIG SOCIETY 22, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1916 PREFACE THE Indonesian languages constitute the Western division of the great Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian, or Oceanic) family of speech, which extends over a vast portion of the earth'a surface, bnt has an almost entirely insular domain, reaching as it does from Madagascar, near the coast of Africa, to Easter Island, an outlying dependency of South. America, and from Eormosa and Hawaii in the North to New Zealand in the South. The whole family is of great interest and importance from the linguistic point of view and can fairly claim to rank with the great families of speech, such as the Inclo- European, the Semitic, the Ural-Altaie, the Tibeto-Chinese, etc. Th.ou.gh hut a amall part of its area falls on the mainland of Asia, there is no reasonable doubt that it is of genuinely Asiatic origin, and of late years it has been linked up with anotlier Asiatic family, which inoludes a number of the languages of India and Indo-China (e.g., Munda, Khasi, Mon, Khmor, Nicobarese, Sakai, etc.). The Indonesian division of the Austronesian family is the part that has best preserved the traces of its origin, and it forms therefore an essential olue to the study of the family as a whole. It has also been more thoroughly investigated than the other two divisions—viz., the Micronesian and Melanesian group and the Polynesian. The Indonesian languages cover practically the whole area öf Indonesia (otherwise called the Eastern, or Indian, or Malay, Archipelago, which includes the Philippines and ex tends from the north-western point of Sumatra to New Guinea), together with the whole of Madagascar, the greater part of the Malay Peninsula, the Mergui Archipelago off the coast of Tenasserim, some outlying tracts in Eastern Indo China (which region there is nmch ground for regarding as v vi PREFACE the primitive home of the whole family), a considerable portion of Formosa, and a few island groups lying to the eastward of the Philippines. Its eastern boundary with the Micro- Melanesian division is still somewhat imperfectly ascertained, but appears to pass east of the Marian Islands and West of the Carolines to a point somewhere in (or near) the western ex- tremity of New Guinea. The greater part of that large Island lies outside the Indonesian division, much of its coast-line falling into the Melanesian section, while a very considerable portion is occupied by the entirely alien Papuan languages, as is also in all probability the greater part of its imperfectly explorecl inferior. Of the Contents of the Indonesian area some details are given in Essay II, § 3, and need not be xe- peated here. The scientific study of the Indonesian languages was initiated over half a Century ago by two very eminent Duteh scholars, the late IT. N. van der Tuuk and Professor Kern, to whom most of the good work that has been done in this fiele! of research has been due, either directly or indirectly. Before their time many of the individual languages of the family had been studied, more or less systematically, but there had been no really scientific application of the comparative method, and consequently the conclusions arrived at by the earlier writers, such as Crawfurd and Logan, were founded on no solid basis. Many of them, in fact, have proved to be unten- able and have been superseded by the sounder methods of the Dutch school. Unfortunately, however, most of the work of the modern school of Indonesian comparative philology has taken the form of articles in learned periodicals or notes in illustration of texts edited from time to time by one scholar or another; and by far the greater part of it is in Dutch. No comprehensive work dealing with the subjeet as a whole exists as yet in any language, and indeed it may be doixbted whether the time has arrived for such a final synthesis to be made. Thore is still much pioneering work to be done in many out lying portions of the field. Dr. Brandstetter, though thoroughly original in the hand- ling of his materials, and by nationality a Swiss, is in the true PREFACE vii line of succession of the Dutch school; and his monographis, of which four have been selected for translation into English, represent something like a new departure and are an iniportant step towards the attainment of the ultimate aim. They deal in a comparative and synoptic manner with some of the lead- ing branches of the subject, and are couched in a form which facilitates their use by students. The four Essays ccmtained in this volume have been selected with an eye to the importance of the several matters discussed therein respectively, and that from the different points of view of three classes of students. I mean, in the first place, those who are interested in com parative philology in general (to whom the author's occasional comparisons of Indonesian with Indo-European phenornena will be of special interest and value); secondly, those whose desire it is to make a particular study of the comparative philology of the Indonesian languages, as an end in itself; and, thirdly, the considerable number of persons who are occupied primarily with some individual member of the family, but would like to see it in its proper perspective in relation to the cognate tongues, and are therefore impelled to give some attention to the family as a whole. By far the greater number of such special students are primarily interested in Malay, the best known and for practical purposes the most important of the Indonesian languages. But this very fact makes it the rnore desirable to present to them the results of the comparative work that has been done. For Malay is in many ways not a very typical member of the family: its grammar has been much worn down and simphfied, and for various other reasons it is unfortunate that so many people are tempted to survey the whole Indonesian field, with its luxuriant diversity, thiough the rather distorting lens of a knowledge of Malay alone. There has been a very widespread tendency among Malay scholars to regard Malay as the Standard or norm of the Indonesian family and to attempt to explain the difierences which they noticed in the other languages as deviations from that Standard; and that is very far from being the true view. Further, even for those whose only object it is to master a viii PREFACE Single langnago, there is some prolit in devol ing a part of their energies to an acquaintanco witli the remilts of comparative. research. In evcry lauguage there are, words, phrases, and idioms, which are obacure and cannot be adecitiatoly explained, or indeed evon thoroughly understood, by the mere light of the language itself, whereas the oompamtivo metliod offen helps to make thein intelligible. And tlie mm turnt a poraon who has coni'med Ins attention to a Single language attempts to explain such things, he is liable. to fall into all maimer of errors, tmless he chocks hiß theories by the results of lmgui«fie. science. It is to be rogretted that tho excullcnt work done by Dutch scholars (and some other») in the liekl of Indoneaian comparative philology has been nogleeted by most English students of Malay, for the eonseipienees have offceti been decidedly imfortunate. Thus a eomparatively roeent tänglmh work, of some importance in its own litte, tjuotes oxtniets from writings by Crawfurd printed in 18-18 as if they reprosented [\w latest light on the subject, though in fact hardly 11. single Word in them has stood the tost of modern research und ahnost every one of the tlteses they contaitt has been delinitely and completely disprovod. Shnilarly, another book, soiimwiiat earlier in date, an achnirable pieco of seholarship in alinosl; every respect, is disfigiirod by an appondix on Malay otyniology that entirely ignores the" work of the Dutch schon] and pro- pounds various hypotheses wliich were plainly untunable at the time they were published, having rogard to tho facta then already mado known to the. world. And such inatnneeH could easily be nmltipliod, if it wero wortli wltilo. It i« to be hoped and expected, as a result of the publication of Di'. Brandstetter's Essays in English, that in future mich error» will be avoided. It is a great merit of Dr. Brandatüttei: that he. inoulmttuUy does much to teach hia readers the scientific modo, of pro cedura in lhiguistics. His grasp of the subject is eijualled by the soundness of his method and the perspieuity of hin ex- Position. Though atrictly acientilio, hia work is casfc into a form that rendcrs it intelligible to the average muht na well as to the specialist, and while tho advaneed stutlent will lind PREFACE ix much to leitm from it, a beginnor of ordinary intelligencc and <:ducation can read it with prolit and understanding. In the tranalation the original has beon closely followod, Jittd .such few modifieations as havo been made in the text have beon oarriod out in consultation with tho author himself and with hia express approval. There are certain obvioua diaadvantagea ittcidentul to the fact that those Essays were originally writto.n and iaaued as separate mouographs: a considerable amount of nvpotition haa been unavoidable, and it often happena that aonte point partially dealt with in an oai'lior Eaaay rooeivos coniploter troatinent in a subsoquent (»no.

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