Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

The First Standard Grammar Of Malay; George Werndly’S 1736 Maleische Spraakkunst, Waruno Mahdi

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

A brief biography of George Henrik Werndly and description of contemporaneous development of linguistics is followed by a perusal of Melchior Leydekker’s and Petrus van der Vorm’s policy of strictly using Classical Malay in Christian publication, that served as basis of Werndly’s work. Then, a detailed perusal of Werndly’s 1736 Malay grammar, in particular the divisions (“books”) on (I) spelling, (II) morphology, and (III) syntax, is illustrated by reproductions of original text passages. Elements of the complicated Latin-script spelling are demonstrated in detail and compared with that of other authors in separate tables. Werndly’s grammatical terminology is considered, and where …