guage, it may be worth while pausing to make
some inquiry about. The word Jawi appears to
me to be the inflection of the word Jawa of the
Javanese language, used as the correlative of Kawi,
the one, as already described, meaning common, and
the other abstruse language. It seems to have been
borrowed by the Malays, like many other words,
and, as the latter have no native learned or recondite
lanffuaffe of their own, in O o which relation the Arabic stands to the vernacular tongue, they use
Jawi as the correlative of Arabi. The Javanese
use the word Jawi as equivalent to translation. By
the usual rule, the noun or adjective is changed
into a verb, and then they familiarly say of an ancient
composition, or of an Arabic one, that it is
translated or made into Javanese, as, in earlier periods
of our own language, the phrases making
English of, and doing into English, were common.
In imitation of them, when the Malays
translate from the Arabic, they use the same language
precisely, and even extend the word to every
species of translation. I imagine it is this very word
for the language which the natives of Arabia have
erroneously, but naturally enough, bestowed not only
on the Malay language, but the people, and hence,
as a common appellation, upon the whole of the natives
of the Archipelago.
The Malayan language affords no internal evidence
of ancient culture. Its genius is destitute o£
the bold metaphorical character ascribed to early
language, particularly in the East. Like the Javanese,
but in an inferior degree, it is rich in simple
epithets, and wantonly and uselessly redundant
in trifles } and like it, too, is singularly deficient in
words of abstract meaning.
The distinction of language, which expresses the
relative language of the speakers, extends to but
a very few words in Malay. This distinction
seems to prevail in the Polynesian languages in
proportion as the people who speak them are improved
and civilized. That it holds to so trifling
an extent in the Malay is an evidence of the small
advances made in civilization and improvement by
the people who spoke it, previous to their acquaintance
with the Arabs, when their improvement assumed
a new modification.
On the derivation and composition of the Javanese
language, it will not be necessary to enter at
length in this place, as the subject will be fully
discussed in the chapter containing general remarks
on the languages of the Archipelago. The language,
as at present written and spoken, may be
said to consist of three essential, one necessary ingredient,
and about four adventitious ones. The
essensial ingredients are the primitive language of
the Malayan tribe, the basis of the whole, the great
Polynesian language, and the Sanskrit. The necessary
ingredient is the Arabic, and the adventi