ON THE WORDS INTRODUCED INTO THE ENGLISH FROM THE MALAY, POLYNESIAN AND CHINESE LANGUAGES.
By John Crawfurd, Esq.
I read before the British Association last Autumn at Birmingham a paper on the Oriental words adopted in English. and present communication is that portion of it, which with some corrections, comprises those taken from the Malay, Polynesian, and Chinese languages. Tho original paper has not been published with the exception of a few extracts in the Atheneum.
Malay Words.
(Bamboo.) My friend Professor Wilson informs me that this word belongs to the Canarese, but it is certainly used in the western side of Sumatra, and Mr Marsden inserts it in his Dictionary as good Malay, with the orthography of Bambu. It is, however, unknown to the Malay language, except in Sumatra. The Malayan name is Buluh and the Javanese Prin͞g. Still it is more likely that the word found its way into the English, and other European languages from Sumatra, than from Canara, with which the early adventurers had very little intercourse.
(Bankshall.) The name given by Europeans to the office of the Master Attendant, or Intendant of a Port. It is most probably taken from the Malay word Ban͞gsal, a shed, an outhouse.
(Bantam fowl.) Bantam in the island of Java, correctly Bantan, was one of the first ports visited by the Dutch and English. It was, at the time, an emporium, and frequented by Chinese and Japanese junks. Here our countrymen found the small breed of fowls, with which we are now familiar, They had been imported from Japan, of which alone they are natives, but our countrymen, finding them at Bantam, proceeded at once to call them by the name, which they have ever since borne. In my time, there was not a single bantam to be found in the kingdom of Bantam.
(Bird of Paradise.) This is certainly not an Indian word, but it is meant for a translation of one. The name of the bird in the Malay is burun͞g dewata, or manuk dewata in Japanese. Burun͞g in Malay is bird, or fowl, and manuk is the same in Javanese. Dewata is Sanskrit, and is a god, or gods, the compound of course meaning "bird of the gods," no doubt on account of its beauty. The birds of paradise are natives of New Guinea, and not known in any part of the Archipelago west or north of it. The Malays and Javanese, who conducted the carrying trade of the islands on the arrival of Europeans in the East, gave these birds their own name, which bears no impress of an indigenous one. In the language of the Negroes of New Guinea, who catch and preserve these birds, they are called manbefor. A pair of birds of paradise
