Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/160

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148
INDONESIAN LINGUISTICS

philology, I have taken several difterent lines. My Hang Tuah and Paupau Rikadong may serve both for the student of literature and the comparative philologist ; the Jayalangkara is a decided abridgment of a somewhat diffuse original, so the student of language would do well not to tackle it; on the other hand, the translation of the Injilai has been specially designed to meet the requirements of the linguistic student, and even the beginner. Parts that were more than usually troublesome to read have been transliterated in the footnotes and every passage that offers any sort of difficulty is literally translated and explained. I did this because in my opinion an accurate knowledge of Bug. is indispensable to IN comparative philologists. — The requirements of students are met even morefully by Snouck Hurgronje's translation of the Blue Princess or Jonker's Kupangese translation : the former translates word for word, the latter gives a double version, an interlinear one and a free one.

16. My monograph has been preceded by five works, all of great value, deahng with some parts of its theme. Kern has written several essays on the Old Jav. verb; Jonker has described the ways in which the IN verb indicates person; Brandes has dealt with the infix -in- ; Van Ophuijsen has discussed certain phenomena of the Mai. Verb; Adriani has scattered in his manuals many acute observations. — It has been my endeavour to find something new to say even on these subjects.

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