Excerpt from A Grammar of the Malayan Language: With an Introduction and Praxis That the Malayan language has obtained this extensive cur reney is attributable in the first place to the enterprising and commercial character of the people, who either by force of arms or in the spirit of mercantile speculation, have established them selves in every part of the archipelago convenient for their pur suits; and perhaps in an equal degree, to the qualities of the language itself, being remarkably soft and easy of pronunciation, simple in the grammatical relation of its words, and in the construction of its sentences, plain and natural. The attention indeed to smoothness of utterance is so great that not only, in the formation of derivatives, letters are systematically changed in order to please the ear, but also in words borrowed from the continental tongues, the Malays are accustomed to polish down the rougher consonants to the standard of their own organs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.