This page has been validated.
ESSAY I
41
geschichte” calls it, “wet-nurse language” . These all contain the consonant m, for vowel they mostly have a; they signify: " to suck, breast, “to drink, to eat, mother, father”. Some are used as imperatives and thus form a link with the preceding category. Examples: Mal. mam, “to suck” ; Lampong mah, “breast”; Achinese mom, “breast” ; Sund. am and mam, “eat !” ; Sund. ma, “mother” ; Mentaway mam or mai, “father” ; Mad. maq, " father ".
70. Fourth category: forms of address.
I. Single instances : Bĕsĕmah bĕ, an expression used in addressing persons younger than the speaker; Bĕsĕmah cih, used in addressing young girls; Sund. nuṅ, “child !”
II. Through several languages, though not with a phonetically concordant final, runs the root represented by Sund. ka, Mad. kaq, Jav. kaṅ, “elder brother”.
III. Often there is a disyllabic form alongside of the monosyllabic one: Sund. bi and ĕmbi, “aunt” ; Mad. naq and anaq, “child” ; Mad. ca and kanca, “friend” . — In such cases the monosyllabic form is generally the one used for the vocative, while the disyllabic one performs the other functions. Some lexicographers are of opinion that the monosyllabic forms represent abbreviations of the disyllabic ones ; that assumption is unnecessary, for the instances under I. show that such monosyllabic formations are capable of existing by themselves.[1]
71. Fifth category: words of substance. As stated in § 34, roots playing the part of words of substance are not numerous in any IN language.
I. Examples from a single language, viz. Karo: buk, “hair”, dah, “clay”, kĕm, " impartial ", rĕh, “to come”.
II. Examples running through two languages. — As in the following Gayo is often referred to, the principal phonetic law of that language must be stated here. It runs : Original IN a appears in Gayo as a or as ö in accordance with very complicated rules; thus Original IN, Old Jav., Mal., etc., ikan, “fish” , appears in Gayo as ikön; but Old Jav., Mal., etc., kuraṅ, “de-
- ↑ [But see Essay IV, § 276.]
