Rev. W.G. Shellabear - Second Edition Vocabulary of Malay Words and Phrases - Preface to the First Edition

Sep 2, 2026

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A revised and enlarged second edition vocabulary by Rev. W. G. Shellabear, providing over 7000 Malay words and phrases with English equivalents, plus an appendix of household, nautical, and medical terms. The preface explains the purpose of publishing the vocabulary separately from “Practical Malay Grammar,” the careful selection of common-use terms, and the Roman-letter system designed to reduce spelling and vowel-finding difficulties. It also highlights organizational principles using roots for derived words, guidance for using prefixes and suffixes, and references back to paragraph numbers in the grammar.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages176

Reading Time4 h 31 min

AccessFree to download

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

Purpose and separate publication from Practical Malay Grammar

Selection of words and Roman-letter transcription system

Finding words by omission of short vowels and consistent romanization

Using the introduction and cross-references to grammar paragraphs

Arrangement by roots and derived forms

Added appendix of English words with Malay equivalents

Waou9 PL5/25S5419/2ASIA CORNELLUNIVERSITYLIBRARY a 巴ow u 191.. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 31924081220968 Cornell UniversityLibrary The original of this book is inthe Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions inthe United States on the use of the text. Containing over 7000 Malay Words or Phraseswith their English equivalents,together with AN APPENDIX Of Household,Nauticaland Medical Terms etc. BY Rev.W.G.SHELLABEAR, Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal ChurchAuthor of“A Practical Malay Grammer”ete. Second Edition,Revised and Enlarged.. Price $2.00. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. This vocabulary has been prepared for use in connection with my“Practical Malay Grammar.”It was originally intended to incorpoT-ate with the Grammar an English-Malay and a Malay-English Voca-bulary,each containing some three or four thousand words,but inview of the fact that most people require a vocabulary containing aslarge a number of words as possible and are subjected to much dis-appointment and annoyance when they find that their vocabulary doesnot contain just the very word which they require,it has been thoughtbetter to publish the vocabularies separately and to make them ascomplete as is consistent with the low price at which such works areexpected to sell. The list of words which is here offered to the public contains oversix thousand words and phrases.In such a list it is of course impos-sible to include all the Malay words which may be met with in eren avery limited range of Malay reading,and the student will no doubtmeet with some expressions in conversation with Malays which willnot be found in this vocabulary.Great care,however,has beentaken in the selection of the words,and it is hoped that very fewwhich are in common use or are likely to be needed by the student inthe first two or three years of his study of the language have beenomitted. In this vocabulary,as in the"Practical Malay Grammar,"theMalay words are printed in roman letters only.Comparatively fewEuropeans make any serious attempt to learn the Arabic character,andthose who do will no doubt require a dictionary rather than a voca-bulary.'The omission of the Arabic characters has enabled theprinters to put out this work in a very compact fom and at a costconsiderably below what it would otherwise have been. The great defect of Malay vocabularies printed in the Romancharacter has always been the difficulty of finding many of the wordsowing to variations of spelling.This has been particularly the casein regard to the romanization of the short vowel sound,which evenin the same work has been represented by different letters in differentwords,according to the derivation of the word or the fancy of theauthor,so that in many cases the student has had'to hunt for a wordin two or three different places before he has been able to find it."This difficulty has been obviated in this work by the adoption of thesame system of romanization which has been used in my Grammar andin all the other Malay publications of the Methodist Publishing House. # PREFACE. Its peculiar feature is the entire omission of the short vowel.Thismakes it just as easy to find a word containing the short vowel as it isin a Malay dictionary printed in the Arabic character,for instead ofhaving to look up such a word as guschaya or psaka under two or threedifferent vowels,the student will.be able to'find it at once from thesound.It is believed that this will be found to be a very great ad-vantage. The introduction should be carefully studied by those who desireto make an intelligent use of this vocabulary.Part of the introduc-tion has been reproduced from the Grammar,but there will also befound a large amount of entirely new matter explaining the use ofprefixes and suffixes,the accentuation of.Malay words,and the useand pronuneiation of foreign words,etc.The student should not failto make the fullest use of the Grammar,not only on account of theim

FAQs

Why is the Malay vocabulary published separately from “Practical Malay Grammar”?

It was originally intended to include English-Malay and Malay-English vocabularies within the grammar, but it was decided that many learners need a larger, more complete vocabulary. The vocabulary is therefore published separately to match the low price while maximizing completeness.

What advantage does the book’s roman-letter system provide?

It omits Arabic characters and uses a consistent romanization system aligned with the author’s grammar and other Methodist Publishing House Malay publications. This approach reduces the difficulty students face when searching for words that vary by spelling and vowel representation.

How are derived Malay words organized in this vocabulary?

Derived words are listed only under their roots. The preface explains that students may need time to identify roots, but understanding prefixes and affixes is necessary for intelligent reading and speaking.

Sep 2, 2026

Upload by Oliver