Munshi Abdullah - An Indian Protaganist of the Malay Language

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--~-----,,-... _ _ . _

/V

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by O.W. Wolters.

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by Nik Hassan Shuhairnl,

Spur-marked Yueh- Type Sherds

at Bukit Seguntang

by E. .Edwards McKinnon.4~~-

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A Reputed Acehnese Sarakata of the

Jamal al-Lai! Dynasty

by Danie l Crece lius and E.A. 8eardow.

An Indian Protagonist of the

Malay Language

Abdullah 'Munshi': his race &mother tongue

by Dato H.F.O'8, Traill,

The Changing Batak

by A.G. Viner.

Isabella Bird's Visit to Malaya:a Centenary Tribute

by J,M. Gullick.

Book Review

Biographical Notes about

Contributors to this Issue

Volume LlI. Part 2

1979

KDN 0597/79- MC(P) No. 117/3/79 -ISSN 0126-7353

Publ ished in Decembe r 1979





H. F. O'B. TRAILLJMBMS, VOL. 52

of Thomson 's which has led somany wri te rs on Abdul lah even up to the pre sent

time to say that he had a Malay or half-Malay ~other. . .Thomson goes on to say, a little contradictorally after imputing a Malay

mother to Abdullah, " in language and national sympathy only was he a

Malay." .' .Even this s ta tement , howeve r, needs cons ide rable qua li fica tion , for a s to

Abdullah' s language , much of his Ma lay grate s upo~ the ear, and c~uld ~eve r

have been written by a ma n whose mother-tongue It was. As to his being a

Ma lay in "na tional sympa thy" ~his c :i tici sms. of the ~a l~ys ,;S a peop l~ and ? fthe feudalistic behaviour of thier Rajas, par ticularly in his Pelayaran and in

the short fragment of Volume, ll o f the "Hikayat", no matter even ~ t~ey werejustified, are extremely offensive. The "stupid Malays" and their 19_TI-orant

hide-bound "nenek-moymzg" , as he considered them to be, were not his raceand were not his ancestors. These critic isms could only have been made by a

foreigner - an outsider looking in. . .The earlier generation of more modern writers cer ta inly knew that Abdullah

was not a Malay. Winstedt, in his "History of Classical Malay Literature"

says of him, " F or ei gn e r t ho u gh h e w a s, ~e led them (the Malaystback ... : .. ~o arealism that is in accord with the gemus of a race of extroverts. (My Italics).

And Wilk inson in his large dict ionary unde r the word" Keling" says "Abdullah

(aman of Ind ian descent ) uses i t of hi s 0Wl1 people". (i.e." Ke l i11g s" ) . .Among the more recent wri te rs on Abdul lah we find tha t A.H. Hi ll , though

aware that Abdul lah was not a Ma lay, neve rthe le ss perpe tuates the ambigu ity

conce rn ing his race and language by re fe rring (on P",20 of the In tr~~uct ion . tohis transla tion ofthe "Hikayat Abdullah") to " .his own language ,meanmgMalay. Again on P. 2 7 H i ll refers to " his own countrymen ", meaning

the Malays. In this case, it is true, Hill exp la ins his re~rk by saying tha t': ; . ... .

in spite of his mixed ancestry he always thought ~f hl.~;l£. as a ,~alay. I

believe this view to be quite mistaken, for although, mh1S Hikayat ,Abdullah

"inc ludes h imsel f in" wi th the Ma lays on many occasions , ye t he s tops short of

calling himself one directly, and in his" Pelayaran" i t isquite clear that he excludes

himse lf f rom the Malays . On tha t voyage the Ma lays a re "them" to Abdullah ,

and he be ra te s them as a race to which he does no t be long.When we consider the more or less present-day writings on Abdullah, chief ly

by Malay scho la rs , and rang ing ove r the pas t twenty yea rs or so, we s ti ll find the

same ambiguity. It is true that in a few works his r ace is cor rec. tly s ta ted, for

example in "Sejarah. Sastera Melayu Moden", by W. Shamsuddm M. Yusoff,who says (P. 61) that Abdullah's family was "peranakan Arab dall India". In a

few other works one c an infer that the authors know that Abdullah was not aMa lay, o r a t lea st not" Melayu Jati", but the majori ty of wri te rs e ithe r s ta te ~r

imply that Abdullah was at least partly Malay, and some .of them refer to.hlS

"masharahat", or soc ie ty , a s though it we re synonomous wi th the Ma lay societyof his time. This can hardly be so, for Abdullah's "masharakai" in Malacca,

where he' lived for the greater par t ofhis life, was that of the "peranakkall Keli1tg"s.

And in Singapore , though he l ived, ve ry unders tandably, in Kampong Melaka ,

68

PART 2, 1979 AN INDIAN PROTAGONIST OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE

an a rea pe rhaps predominant ly Ma lay, he would neve rthe le ss have had a lso his

fellow ex-Malacca "peranakkans" as his neighbours. His few Malay friendswere on the periphery of his world even in the Settlements, and as for the

"masharakat" of the Malay States, which was the true Malay society, it was to

him that ofa foreign country.

In his "Hikayat" Abdullah himsel f i s a lmost a s ambiguous on the sub jectof his race a s the people who have wr it ten about him. He neve r definitely c la ims

to be a Malay, in so many words, but he implies it in an obl ique way quite fr e-

quently.On Page 32 of the "Hihayai" for example (Ma lay Lite ra ture Series , 4 . 6 th

Edi tion , 1949) he says tha t it wa s not thought right by the Malays to study the

Malay language because it is " ...... our 0W1l language". (My ita lics)

Aga in , on P. 128 , when ask ing reade rs not to b lame him for the mistakes in

Paderi Thomsen's translation ofthe Gospel ofSt. Mathew, on account ofAbdullah

being Thomsen's guru, he says that he, at least, knows what is right from what

iswrong in the Malay language because "it i s m y OWlJ language".

But it is in his final pages that Abdullah comes nearest to saying he is a

Ma lay, though aga in on ly by includ ing himsel f wi th the Ma lays , and not by an

unequivoca l s ta tement . He says, onP. 348, <C . . . .. . . .. the re is one o the r ma tter

which I find amongst lIS Malays ..... .". And yet even here it is apparent that

Abdullah cannot cal l h imsel f a Ma lay, for in the very same sentence in which

he starts off by saying "Kita orang Melayu", he lapses back into "dia" and

"mereka" instead ofrepeating the "kita",

I think it would be more correct to say that by the time he wrote his

"Hikayat", which was towards the end of his life, Abdullah was certa inly identi-

fyil:g himsel f with the Ma lays , but de fini te ly not thinking of himse lf a sa Malay

by race.

It i s d ifficu lt to say jus t when Abdul lah began to ident ify h imself wi th the

Ma lays . He cer ta in ly did no t do so inh is chi ldhood, for his own evidence shows

his fami ly to have been numbered among the "Peranahkan Keling" families of

Malacca,

His intens ive and enthus ia st ic study of the Ma lay language in his youthprobably sowed the seeds of h is Malayophi l out look in adul t l if e, and this must

have grown stronger as the years went by. But it was a "love-hate" sentiment

which was never resolved.

Abdullah's" Pelayaran" was written in.1838, and in that work, as mentioned

above, he does not imply that he was a Malay in the way that he does in the"Hikayai", which was started in 1840 and finished in 1843. In fact there is

only one occasion in the "Pelayarau", (Ma lay Liter ature Series No.2 . Second

Edit ion, 1965), where he comes anywhere near to such an implica tion, and tha t

i son P. 94 when he is explaining the rules of the "Pantun", presumably for the

benefit of his non-Malay readers. But the very fact that he does explain them

is furthe r evidence of h is own non-Ma lay race and out look , for it would never

occur to a Malay writer that any such explanation was necessary.

69



II'I,

JMBRAS, VOL. 52H. F. O'B. TRAILL

Abdullah started to write the "Hikayat" only about two years after the

"Pelayaran", and it i s a t f ir st s ight surpris ing that in such a short sp~ce o~time

he should have so changed his stance as to imp ly on frequent occasion s inthe

"Hikayat", as noted above, that he Was a Malay. Is it. perhaps just p?ssib~e

that in the interval between the two works he had realised how offensive hIS

remarks in the "Pelayaran" must have appeared to the Malays, and therefor e

more pointedly ass imilat ed himse lf to the Malays in the "Hihayat" in order to

t ake some of the st ing out ofhi s st ri ctures '

There i s in fac t some evidence tha t th is may have been so, i .e . in the sentencereferred to above, occur ring on P. 348 of the "Hikayat", where he starts of f by

saying "We Malays" and later on in the very same sentence says "they" (the

Malays) instead of repeating. the "we", This could well be the result of his

conscious effort to include himself with the Malays being betrayed by his forget-

fullness so that he reverted to what was in fact the truth, and what he would

more natural ly have written, referring to the Malays as "they".

In general I would say tha t Abdull ah 's f inal adopt ion of the Malays as "hi s

people" s temmed from two main causes, one being his love and enthusiasm for

the Malay language from the time he studied itunder the bes t "gurus' i n Malacca,

and the other and more impor tant one being the ir common rel ig ion, I sl am.

However, an examina tion of the evidence in Abdullah"s OWn "Hikayat"leaves little doub t that he was a "Peranahkan Keling", using Arabic for rel igion

and having Tamil as his household or family language, that is, his mother-tongue.

Tha t he spoke Malay a lso i s qui te cer ta in , for a ll "Peranakkans" did so, but the ir

Malay Wasof the "bazaar" var ie ty, which in Abdull ah 's case Was then improved orto a very high standard by the mos t determined and assiduous s tudy.

Abdullah's great-g randf ath er was an Arab named Shaik Abdul Kad ir , a

t eacher of rel ig ion and language. (Abdullah, wri ting in Malay , cor rect ly cal ls

h im a "gu ru" , not a "munshi't.) Shaik Abdu l Kadir migrated fr om the Yemen

to what Abdullah calls " . .. .. .. .. tanah Keling dalam negeri Nagur", that is, the

country of the Tamils in Nagur. (Which is in Mysore). He lived there for

the rest of his life, and married there. Abdullah does not say that the woman

his great-gr andfath er married was a woman of that coun try, i.e, a Tamil, but

most writers , correct ly I think, assume that she Was s o. (Some even state cate-

gorical ly that she was so, but without authori ty).

There were four sons o f the marriage and after their f ath er's death they all

migr ated to variou s countries o f Sou th East Asia. One o f th em , MuhammedIbrah im, came to Malacca. He was Abdullah's gr andfath er, and he married

"Peri Achi" , a daughte r of Sha ik Mira, Lebai .

Although Abdullah says that his grandmo ther's n ame was "Peri Ach i",

it is probable that th is was not her given name, but was her family n ickname,

or pet name. Since the name is Tamil it implies that her family's language was

Tamil. Her family, in fact, must have been very similar to Abdullah's own,

70


judging by her father's name, that is, a family of Arabic descent on the male

side but int ermarr ied with Tamil wives for a t leas t one generat ion before "Peri

Ach i", and probab ly more, d epend ing on how many generations of the f am ily

had lived either in the Peninsula or possibly, as with Abdullah's family, in Tamil

India. The son of this marriage wa s Abdul lah's father , g iven the name aga in

of ShaikAbdul Kadir in memory ofhis grandfather, Abdullah's great-grandfather.

Shaik Abdul Kad ir 's f ir st wife was almost certainly a Malay girl from a

vil lage about twe lve miles f rom Malacca , and by her he had a son and a daughte r.

But , chief ly through pressure f rom his family, he divorced her and returned to

Malacca. Some time later he married Abdu llah 's mother, whose name was'

"Salamah" .

As with so many points in Abdullah's ancestry, the details which he g ives

in the "Hikayat" of his mo ther's or igins ar e somewhat in complete. He says

(p. 5), ". . .. .. nenek-nya orang Hindu, dan negeri-nya Kedah, maka datang-lah

mereka itu. k a- Me la cc a m as ok u ga ll Ja I sl am , i a- pu n b er an ah ha n- la h t 'l m- ku i tu d ala m

Me laha , d i- n am a 'i -u y a: Salamah",

Abdullah uses the word "Hindu" to mean "Tamil" or "Keling", so

"Salamah's" "nenek", plura l in thi s context ("mcreka") were Tamils. When

he says they came to Malacca, became Muslims, and got a ch ild , his mo ther,

whom they named "Sa lamah", the re i s a seeming inconsis tency, s ince only the

grandparent s a re mentioned, and not "Sa la rnah 's " parents . Pe rhaps "nenek"

is used in the sense of "forebears" , which could even mean "Sa lamah' s" parents,

though this is unlikely. It is more probable that Abdullah did not know, or

had forgotten, the detai ls of "Salamah's" parents , and so skipped one generat ionin his account . In any case, whether parents . or grandparents, they were Tamils.

Hill in his I ntroduction to the "Hihayat", (P. 7) refers to "Selamah" as

"a Malacca-born hal f- Indian", but the re i s nothing in Abdullah"s account to

show tha t she was anything but a full Tamil . (Hi ll a lso in his t ransl at ion of th is

pas sage , P. 32, has "My mother' s father was an Indian from Kedah, who had

embraced the Mus lim fai th and moved to Malacca, where my mother . ... ... .. was

born" , whereas Abdul lah, as mentioned above , s ays i t was the grandparen: s, or

forbears, ( 1 1 B 1 t e k ) , and they (mereka) came to Malacca, and there became Muslims.)

A.E. Coope, inthe Introduction to his translation of Abdullah's" Pelayaran" ,P. X, says "Probably Abdullah's mother had Malay blood". Un fortunately he

does not give any reasons for th is supposi tion , and, as sugges ted previously, he

may be fol lowing Thomson 's l ead here. As noted above , Abdul lah himse lf says

that "Salamah's" grandparents (or forebears) WereTamils , and there is no reason

to suppose that she, like her fo rebears from Kedah , was anything but a pure

Tamil byblood. Even her name f it sher Tamil race, for the e lipt ical Jawi spelling,"Sim", " lam", "rnim" , "ha" can as easily be r endered "Sellamah", a common

female Tamil name, as "Salamah' or "Salrna" which we have hitherto been

given.I t would seem, the re fore , tha t Abdull ah 's mother, grandmother , and grea t-

grandmother in direct line, were Tamils, except that his grandmother ' 'Peri Achi"

probably had some Arab blood from her fathe r' s s ide. Thi s means tha t Abdul lah

71



H. F. O'B. TRAILL JMBRAS, VOL. 52

was a little more than 1/8 Arab , and almost 7/8 Tamil by blood , depending on

how many of "Peri Achi's " family had marri ed Tamil wives.

There are many other pieces of evidence from Abdullah's own autobiography,

the "Hikayat", which show that h is family, although of Arab ic descent on the

male s ide, was numbered amongst the "Peranakhan . Ke li11!J" families of Malacca,Some of these point s a re sl ight , o thers a re dec is ive, and in sum total they leave

lit tle doubt of his racial s tatus and his mother-tongue.

He was born in Kampong Pali, which, he says, isTamil for Kampong Masjid,

which shows i t to have been a Tamil quart er of Malacca.Both his chi ld , S it i Lela, and late r h is wi fe a lso, were bur ied a t the t'Masjid

Keling, e l i- ba lch Mihrab" (Hkt. P .P. 317 and 325).

On page 204 of the "Hikayat" Abdullah relates that when Raffles was leaving

for Europe he gave Abdullah a letter and said to him "If you get work in the

courts show this letter to whoever is Governor of Singapo re and you will get a

higher sa la ry than Malay people [would get ]" , which impli es that Raffl es knew

Abdullah himself was not a Malay. Raffles, indeed, had such an extensive

knowledge of the peoples of the Eastern Seas, both f rom his own exper ience and

from his wide reading, that it i s inconceivable tha t he did not know Abdul lah to

be a "Peranahhan Keling", Moreover Raffles had brought a "Peranakhan

Keli11!J"writ er and inte rpre te r with him from Penang when he came to Malaeca,

and so was wel l aware of the advantage such people had in being conversant with

both Tamil and Malay, whereas the Malay writ ers did not speak Tamil .

Hill, in his t rans lat ion of thi s passage, inse rt s the word "othe r" - "a higher

salary than other Malays" - which completely changes the meaning, and is ....surely an un ju stified inter polation since it bears on such a critical point, i.e.

Abdu llah's race. Neither the Jawi no r the Rumi versions of the" Hikayat" sayttother" Malays.

The most conclus ive st at ement of Abdull ah himse lf as to his family' s race

occurs when he speaks of the Letter Writers of Malacca, (Hkt. P. 31). He

first lists four of th em as follows:- For emost was Khoja Muhammad, "ia-ituperanakhan KeUng Malacca", then Jamal Muhammad, next Abdullah's own

fathe r Abdul Kadir , and fourth Mahid bin Ahmad, Lebai . Although he applies

the epithet crPeranahhan Kelitlg" only to the first of these four names, yet the

fact that he immediately afterwards goes on to name specifically the Malay writers

shows dearly tha t he did not inc lude the f ir st four, and his own fathe r, amongst

the Malays. For he continues, "And there were, from the Malay people that

I knew, Enchek Yahya bin Abdul Wah id and Enchek Ismail b in MuhammadArif Surati".

Here then Abdullah makes a clear dis tinction between the Peranakhan KeUngor non-Malays, including his father, on the one hand, and the Malays on the other.

Given Abdullah's family pedigree it can hardly be doubted that his family

language was Tamil, though like all (,Peranahhan. Kelil1g" famil ies they spoke

72

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L_~ _

PART 2. 1979 AN INDIAN PROTAGONIST OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE

Malay a lso, when speaking to Malays or Chinese or Europeans . Abdul lah says

that h is fathe r Wasa good Tamil speaker and a par ti cula rly good Malay speaker

and writer. Since Abdul Kadir was the first of the family to be born in the

count ry he must have made a spec ia l study of the Malay language to become so

proficient in i t, and this isnot surpris ing since he came from a family of "gurus".

Moreover , dur ing the few years of his f ir st marriage to a Malay gir l, and l iv ing

in a Malay kampong, he had the oppor tuni ty of improving his col loquial Malay

to a st andard above tha t ofhis fellow "peranakkmt" writers.

But as to his son, with a Tamil mother, Se llamah, and a near-Tamil grand-mother with a Tamil pet-n ame "Peri Achi", with both of whom he had a close

affinity as a ch ild, Abdullah must surely have grown up speaking the Tamil

l anguage as his mother- tongue. Even Abdull ah 's father cal led his own mother

"Achi" asAbdullah says (Hkt. P. 14), ". . .. .. .. . ia-ita bahasa.Keling",

It may be noted here that "Achi" is a Tamil word meaning "sister" Or

" female relative", and "per i" deno tes "elder". So when Abdu llah says that

"Achi" means "elder si st er", he sl ips a l it tl e. "Peri Achi", not "Achi" a lone,

means "elder sister". Bu t it is an understandable slip, (perhaps even a slip in

revision), because his fathe r habitual ly shor tened the nick-name "Per i Achi"

to just "Achi". The composite word "Periachee" is in fact th e name o f a Hindu

Goddess, but it appears to be quite unknown as a personal name fo r a Tamil

woman. And in any case, as Abdullah says, his grandmother was called "(Peri)

Achi", (elder) sister, because she was on ly 13 years old when she gave birth to

Abdul lah's fathe r, so that she appeared to be his s is ter rathe r than his mother.

"Peri Achi"s real name therefore Wedo not know, but the point of importanceis that the words a re Tamil , which was spoken in the family by Abdul lah's fathe r

and grandmother. That it was also the f amily language o f Abdullah .himselfand his Tamil mother ishardly disputable.

A.E. Coope says in the Introduction to his translation of the "Pelayaran'

"(Abdullah) spoke Malay, of course, and also Tamil . Probably he was bi-lingualin Malay and Tamil".

I th ink the fac ts show that itwould be more correct to say "He spoke Tamil,of course, and also Malay".

That Abdul lah was hi- lingual in Tami l and Malay is not in question ; but

his Malay, du ring his childhood, would have been "bazaar" Malay, though

probably of a higher s tandard then usual because of his father's prowess in thatlanguage.

Coope adds that he considers it "quite wrong to say, as has been said, that

(Abdullah's) s ty le was colloquial", (meaning the style of Malay as spoken by the

Malays to one another ), and that if Abdull ah had writ ten in the t rue colloquia lMalay style hewould have "done much to raise the standard ofthe most important ,

yet most neglected, branch of Malay studies , the teaching to foreigners of spokenMalay as spoken between Malays".

With this sentiment J ful ly agree, but not with i ts implication. That Abdullah

did not use the true colloquial style of Malay is perfectly, and often painfully,

apparent. But the reason is quite simply that he was not capable of doing so.

73



H. F. O'B. TRAILL JMBRAS, VOL. 52

Fo r all h is exper tise, Malay for him, th at is id iomatic Malay, wh ich includes

colloquial or spoken Malay, was a learnt language, and shows as such in his

writings.Again, Coope says" .. ... . h is impor tance li es in the fac t tha t he diverges f rom

the formal, not to say s til ted, styl e of the old his tori ca l and romanti c wri ters, and

wrote natural ly" .

Thi s st at ement needs some qua li fi ca tion , for in fac t it can easily be seen

fr om Abdullah's own accounts o f his study of th e Malay language, in several

par ts of his Hikayat, particularly on P.P. 96-97, that he thought he was modelling

his wri ting on the c lassi ca l examples which he studied. The formal expressions

of the old wri te rs, such as those words introduc ing new paragraphs, a re used by

Abdullah relentlessly, though o(ten wrongly.

And in other respect s too, though it cannot be said tha t he was success fu l,

it is evident that he thought he was writing in class ical Malay.

That he wrote "natur ally" f or the most part r agree , and tha t i s sure ly his

chief contribution to Malay as literature. Inspite ofhis efforts to copy the classicalwri te rs h is "na tura lness " kept breaking in, g iv ing much of his wri ting a human

touch and real ity, not so oft en found in the t radi tiona l Malay works.

One of Abdul lah' s s ta tement s in the "Hihayat" could , a t f ir st s ight , rai se

some doubts as to Tamil having been his family language, i .e . tha t on page 20,

where he te ll s us tha t a ft er recover ing f rom his c ircumcis ion his fathe r sent h im

to a teacher to s tudy the Tamil l anguage and le tt er -wr it ing and ari thmeti c. The

reason he gives for thi s i s tha t Malacca a t that t ime was ful l ofTami l t raders and

business men, and that a ll chi ldren of good family were made to learn the Tamil

l anguage. Abdul lah s tudied i t for two and a hal f years.I do not think the re i s any evidence that the pure Malay famil ie s of Malacea,

at th at o r any o ther time, made their childr en study the Tamil language, and

Abdull ah"s remark can refer only to the Tamil, or "Peranakkan Keling" families

of Malacca . Tha t Abdul lah should have been made to s tudy his mother- tongue

should not surp rise us, for although in those days most people stud ied little

besides the Kora'an, yet Abdu llah came from a well-educated fam ily on h is

father's s ide, and his father set great s tore on giving Abdullah a sound education,

not only in rel igion, but in the Tamil and Malay languages as well as in ari thmetic

and letter-writing.

Abdullah's h aving stud ied the Tamil language cannot therefo re be taken

to mean that Tamil was not his mother-tongue. Ifthis were sothe same argument

cou ld be used as to th e Malay language, wh ich he had to study far more deeply

than he studied Tamil .

Moreover, tha t Abdull ah was able in lat er l ife to t ranslat e Tamil books into

Malay after only two and a half years study o f the Tamil language in his child-hood, even though he did this with some assis tance from a Tamil friend, is further

evidence that Tamil Washi s family language, to which these few years of s tudy

added some literary polish.

One possible piece of evidence of Abdul lah' s family language would be the

pamph let wh ich he wrote after the death of his child Sid Lela. It was a comfor t

74


no t only to himself and his wif e but, for long afterwards, to their friend s when

they suffe red s imila r bereavements , and a number of these f ri ends made copies

of i t.

He says, (Hkt. P. 318) that he read this pamphlet to his wif e, and it would

be interesting to know in what language it was written. He gave it an Arabictitle, "Dasoa'i'l-Kulub", "Ba lm for the Heart ", but i t is unl ikely that the pamphle t

itself was in that language. If i t were wri tt en in Tamil i t would be an important

conf irmation as to the family language, but if wr it ten in Malay, which i s perhaps

more l ikely to be the case , s ince Abdul lah was a t tha t t ime of his l ife wri ting hisMalay work s, th e matter would be "non-proven" . Unfo rtunately no copy of

this pamph let seems to be known to us now.

However, even without this small piece of addit ional evidence, that which

we have is surely suff icien t. Although the "Peranakhan Keliug" famil ies are

bi- linqual in Tamil and Malay yet it is only the Tamil l anguage which they speak

among themselves, and Tamil therefore is their household language, or mother-

tongue.

Abdul lah f ir st s ta rt ed his Malay studies in his own home, with his fathe r as

tutor . Later on he learnt the language f rom the Let te r Wri te rs mentioned above ,

going to them for help and instruction in words or phrases which he did not

underst and in the Malay books he wa s reading.

F rom his own reading and from these wr it ers he learnt many of the "secrets "

and ins-and-outs ofthe Malay language. Although it wa s chiefly to the" Peranak-

han Kelillg" writers th at he Wen t, he says that th ere were some word s which,

good scho lars though they were, th ey could no t explain to h im . On these occa-

sions they refer red Abdul lah to Datok Sulaiman, a pure Malay, "orang Melayu

asai", and from him Abdul lah lea rnt the basic princ ip les and roots of the Malay

language. The other pu re Malay f rom whom he lear nt was Datok Astur.

Abdullah describes (Hkt. P. 33) how he learnt all the refinements o f th e

Malay language from his "gurus." But, apart from difficult words and phrases ,

much of what he learnt , such as pre -f ixes, suff ixes , and idioms and proverbs,

wer e things which a «Melaya jati" would have known without studying, f rom

the fact of Malay being his mother-tongue. Abdullah had to learn all these

uses because his Malay, before he studied the language, was "bazaar" Malay.

His indefat igable studies of the Malay language gave Abdullah the command

o f an extensive vocabulary - far exceeding that o f the o rdinary Malay raya'at,

of course, a t l east as regards l it erary words , and qui te comparable to tha t of the

learned Malay writers. He also acquired most of th e proverb s in common use

amongst the Malays. But in respec t of idiomat ic Malay usage I would say that

a lthough much above the average non-Malay, he was ye t far f rom perfect ion.

And to pra ise his "puri ty ofMalay style", asHil l does, s eems to me tobe a propo-

sit ion which it is quite impossible to substantiate.

As one reads through the "Hikayat" one is confronted again and again by

expressions which are basical ly un-Malay. They show clearly that the foundation

7S



H, F, O'B, TRAILL JMBRAS, VOL, 52

on which Abdullah built up his unquest ionably great knowledge of the language

was the "bazaar" Malay of the "peranakkan Keling", which shows it sel f con-

t inua lly in his "Hihayat" and in his "Pelayaran", A JJ well as this, there are

many other expres sions which show an incomple te knowledge of Malay usage

or a misunderstanding of what he had learnt,Coope sugges ts tha t such express ions a re the result a ! "slovenly" writing,

orwere due to Abdullah writing his reports "hot from the anvil", and that Abdullah

somet imes recorded the conversa tions of foreigners in ( thei r own) bad Malay.But in fact Abdullah's unidiomatic Malay usages are far too frequent to be merely

the result of slovenliness , and as for the Hikayat , in which so many infe~cities

occur it was wr it ten a t l eisure, not inhaste. That he records the talk of foreigners

in bad Malay is true, but he uses equally bad Malay when writing in his own

person. . .Nor can his "lapses into hybrid idiom" bethe result ofthe Western influences

to which he was exposed, as Hill says. On the contrary, they show that the

wr it er was using a "lea rnt" language , and not his mother -tongue. ,

Abdull ah al so expla ins some of the simple proverbs, where It would never

occur to a native Malay speaker that any explanation was necessary , e.g. the frog

under the coconut shell, as well as some words, such as (in the "Pelayaran",

P. 18) "Salang" and "Sula" which, though not often used . in ever!-day speech,

were understood and readily explained to Abdullah by ordinary Vil lage Mal~ys.

The word "Sulahan" i ndeed i s used in the "Sejarab Melayu", Page 52, With,

of course, no explanation of it, since all Malays :would understan~ it.

Abdullah's chief claim to fame in Malay literature - a claim made not byhim but by others - is his modernism and realism, and he is commonly given

the tit le of "Father of Modern Malay"·. Only a few Malay scholars have disputed

this and have c la imed tha t honour inst ead for the seventeenth-century phi lo-

sopher-poet Hamzah Fansuri. :rheir op.in.ion,~owever, is base~ on.the definiti~n

of "modernism" as being a rational phi losophical out look which IS reflected m

the author's Writ ing, rathe r than being the form of the wr it ing it se lf . Abdull ah

does not come into the category of the great philosophical wri ters , and therefore

his title as the pioneer of modernism. stems from. other causes, .

As to his being the pioneer of realism, that too has been questioned, by

Wahiduddin b. Abd. Wahab, who, certainly with some justification, gives priority

to Raja Chulan , the author of "Misa Melayu".. Never t: I:e le ss one c : m s~y thatAbdullah's image, amongst scholars of Malay literature tn general, IS still that

of the pioneer of modernism and realism. .. .That this should be so is a considerable I rony, since Abdullah himself, as

has been mentioned above tried to model his style on that of the traditionalMalay class ics. His efforts to dothis arc implied in several parts ofthe" Hihayat",

particularly on pages 32 to 33 and 96 to 97.. ,His attempted imitation of the classics is very obVIOUSthroughout his works.

For example, in the opening words of the "Hikayat" in the Rurni edition (though

it is the second paragraph in the 1849 Jawi edition), we have "Bahsaa se~~rang

d en ga rh ar : o le h-m u, h ai kehaseh-kl.l,...... " a recognisable echo of the traditional

76


writers, and not at all a modem style. (Though surely the "Bahwa sekarang

Ikngarkan o le h- m u . .. .. . " i s a j ar ring , unidiomati c phrase ). A similar imit at ion of

the old writers is (on pages 94 and 148 ), "Kala yang ampunya chetera ini"; andother such examples a re not hard to f ind.

Abdullah's most frequent copying of the old literary style is in his USeo f

such words as "bermula" or "sabermula", "hatta", "maha" of course, "shahadan",

"arahian" and "kalakian", but he uses these words much more often than the

c las si cal writ ers d id , By far his favourit es are "bermula" and "sabermula", and

since these words mean "to begin with", or "firs tly", or some similar expression,

Abdul lah' s use of them is oft en not only superf luous but a lso qui te wrong. For

example, in the chapter of his" Hikayat" "Dari-hal Tuan Governor Butterworth",

pages 331 to 33+, out of the first seven paragraphs no less than six start with

"sabermula", and the remaining one (para 2) with "shahadan", Only in the

first two paragraphs can it be said that these words are correctly used. The

next f ive consecut ive paragraphs do not conta in the mat ter which could just ify a"to begin with" or "firstly", _

Yet another example of Abdullah's imitation of the class ical Malay literature

i s h is f requent use of the const ruct ion which goes "Ada ymtg . .. .. . " this, "Ada

ymtg.... . ." that, "Ada yang. .. .. . " the other, a construction which when first

encounte red i s very s tr ik ing, but which pal ls wi th subsequent repet iti on . He

uses thi s device on pages 143,145,151,176,179,209, and 265 of the "Hikayat".

We find exac t models for th is in the "Sejarah Melayu", (pages 27 and 59) , wi thwhich work Abdul lah Waswel l acqua in ted , having supervised the print ing of

an edition of it in Singapore. The same construction is found in the "HikayatHang Tuah", and in other classical works.

There are many other examples in Abdullah's wri tings which amply bear

out his own intimations in the "Hikayat" that he was trying to write as the old

writers did, who Were his models. His modernism, therefore, which does indeedexist , was fortuitous, and by no means intended.

From this conclusion the obvious quest ion arises, why then are Abdullah'swr itings regarded as "modern" ~ There are several answers to th is,

Fi rs tly (one a lmos t wrote "sa-bermula"), he was writ ing fac tually about

identifiable people places and events in modern history, in contras t to the hal f-

his torical, half-legendary, or romantic-mythical vein of the old Malay class ics,

Secondly he wrote with vividness and naturalness, backed by a very observant

eye and an insa ti ably enqui ring mind, so that we get those human deta ils of the

people places and happenings which he wrote about. It is this aspect of his

work which has caused many wri te rs to l iken him to a journa li st, and Ithink it isjustly remarked by some writers , e.g. Elyas bin Omar, that he was a "journalist"

able to repor t h is own thought s wi thout regard to other people' s wishes , in con-

trast to th e p revious traditional writers who more often wrote at the behest oftheir masters.

Abdul lah a lso wrote wi th imagina tion , using original metaphors such as

l ikening the Malay language to "belukar", ason page 247 ofhis "Hihayat",

77



H. F. O'B. TRAILLJMBRAS, VOL. 52

Then there are his c ri ti ci sms of the out look of the Malays which he thought

was ignorant and out-moded, and particularly his cri ticisms of the Malay feudal

system. These things he was able to observe objectively because he h imself

was not a Malay, and as the years have passed his cr it ic isms have found a popular

response becau se of th e changed conditions of modern society. And indeed

those same crit ic isms of his have played the ir par t in bringing about the changeswhich have occurred.

Thi s too, then , has helped to earn him his ti tl e of "Fathe r ofModern MalayLiterature" . One should also mention in this connection the point made by

Kassim Ahmad in his "Kisah Pelayaran A b du ll ah K a K el an ta n. dan Judah" on

page 13, that Abdullah's modernism is not only a matter of style but also of

content , s ince these views ofhi s s ti rred new l ife and spir it i n the Malay writ ers

ofmodem times. (A sentiment which isperhaps an echo ofWinsted's previously-quoted remark).

F inal ly, a good par t of Abdul lah 's moderni sm is the result of that "bazaar"

Malay influence which he never managed to get rid o f. "Bazaar" Malay after

a ll i s a l anguage essenti al ly practi ca l, and shorn of superf lu it ie 's , Abdullah' s

ef fort s to wr it e c lass ical Malay Were indeed very super fi ci al , and much of his

writing has a strong "bazaar"· Malay foundation which gives it a flavour of modem

reportage. But th e d iff erence is that even a present day Malay reporter still

uses correct basic Malay idiom, whereas Abdullah so often does not .

Abdullah' s wr it ings, the refore, have a fee ling of moderni sm, dif fi cult to

def ine precis ely, wi th in a super fi ci al c lassi cal f ramework. Where he fai ls i s in ' "

the proper idiomati c use of the basic Malay language, the very sphere in which

he thought he Was s upreme. That he did think so is shown inmany passages

in the" Hikaya:" and par ti cula rly, perhaps , When he gives as one of his reasons

for writing that work that it should be an example to those Who are learningMalay. (Hkt. P. 343).

The basic Malay idiom is neither "modern" nor " traditional" , it is a con-

tinuing factor in the language. In the "Sejarab Melayn" and perhaps even

more in the " Hi ka ya t H an g Tuah", legendary, mythical or romantic as they may

be, we f ind a pur ity and lucidi ty which i s st il l bas ic to present-day Malay, both

spoken and written. Even in the "med ia" o f today it is chiefly the individual

words and phrases which are new, but not the idiomati c usage. Although there

are many passages in Abdull ah 's wr it ings which have correc t idiomat ic usage

yet there are at least as many where his "bazaar ') Malay ismanifest, and unpleasing

to the ear. .. .

The contention that Abdullah's Malay is too often unid iomatic does not,

I think , need a great dea l of a rguing, for an increasing number of modern Malay

writ ers seems to be aware of the fac t.


Only a few examples need be given from innumerable others in the "Hikayat".There i s thi s s entence, then , on page 80: -

"Haita satelah. ke 'e sokka t t har i-nya, maka bermula-mula Tuan. Lord Minto

i tu . b er ja la n p er gi m e li ha : p e1 tj ar a y an g t emp at o ra ng b er sa la J: d m : y m tg b er -h ut ar tg i tu . s ah al ia n d i- pe nja ra ka tt , m ah a a da o rm tg y a! tg h ga e mp at t ah un ,a da o ra ng y an g e nam t uj oh b ul an ",

This sentence starts off well, but lapses into "bazaar" Malay with the phrase" p e/ ya m y an g t em pa : o rm tg b er sa la h d a n b er ll 1l ta ng . ... .. " etc. j and the phra~es" ada orang yang tiga. e mpat tahun", and a da o ra ~ tg y a ng c lt am t tl Jo !~bulan" are inprecise in thei r meaning, whereas a Malay wri ter ,would make I t

clear to what these period s of time referred. Such a sentence IS far fr om the

uncluttered idiomatic Malay of either the class ics or of modem Malay writing.

As an example of wrong usage one may cite Abdullah's frequent use of

"rumab tangga" to mean household .goods. Though Wilkinson in hi~ dictionary

does give thi s as a secondary meaning he unfor tuna te ly quotes as hIS reference

Abdullah himself, which is begging the question.

Abdullah's duplication of the word" orang" in the "Hikayat" is interminable,

e.g. ". . .. .. s a" or an g o ra ng A ra b . .. .. . (P. 9) and " .... " ..me ng aj ar s a- or an g o r( ll ig

saudagar" (P. 213). Although there are one or two such examples to be. seen

in the Malay classics, yet they are th e exception to the rule. As well as ' this we

have in the" Hikayat" the superf luous plura l as in " menge n al ka n a im k ep a da

segal.a o ra ng o ra ng puieh" (P o 198) and " t i ga OI 'angorang kuii China "

(P. 189).

Inhis opening paragraph, page 3, aswell as on pages 257 and 264, Abdullah has

the awkward and harsh-sounding phrase " btu'attgyang kll lihat d an y att g k It

d e ng a r . .. .. . " , the very word-by-word composition whi~ he warns others to

avo id, and he has another such word -by-word composrtion on P. 117, "Sayasuha kalau. bold: jadi" which is, in addit ion, a ' 'bazaar' ' Malay usage.

Other infeli ci ti es' abound in the "Hihayat", and a small selection cou ld

include the following:-

(i) " akan t et ap i p ad a a ka n mereka itu. " (P. 315)

(ii) " pe tang"pe ta llg orang -orang puteh pergi ha-situ. lIumgall7.bil-alllbt7angin," (P. 312)

(iii) " sa hari-hari dalani pel1yakit tidak satu-saW." (P. 11)

" ada-lalt salah. ta' satu-sa tu:" (P. 29)

(Also O1tpages 65,161,180 alld 183).

(iv)ct ' " ••

. i kau be lum biasa d i -11 Iaka t l- I IIakanora1 tg" (P . 142)(v) " " . ... yatlfJ belum-belum p emal l d a ta ! ~gd ah ulu -d ah uh :" , (P . 256)

We even have an example of tha t p lum of "bazaar" Malay usage , on page 20,

HEttche p u ny a s u ha " ;

Both on page 258 and on page 304 Abdullah uses the expression" Hairan,

ha ir an , ha i rau " , whereas a Malay writer, using the word in an exclamatory sense,

would use only one "hairau", emphasising it if necessary by some such con-

79

- - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ - - - - ~ . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



H. F. O 'B. TRAILLJMBRAS, VOL. 52

tru~tion as, for example, "Hairan betul, sahaya", This too i s the sort of wr it ing

which, because of i ts novelty , has helped to give Abdullah the label of "modern"

but it should mor e correctly be seen as yet another example of a writer who has

lea rnt the words, but l acks the basic fee ling , of a l anguage not his own.

As to the "Pelayaran" I would say that in general it contains some, but

fewer, such examples o funidiomatic Malay. Indeed it has some pages of good

Malay style , such as pages 50to 53. But perhaps these pages are bet te r because

they are repo rting the words o f t he Raja Bendahara, which Abdullah tells us he

Wrote down on the spot.

Al though, as mentioned above, severa l modem Malay wri te rs have pointed

out Abdull ah 's bad style, yet ..none o f th em, in my view, attributes it to the rightcause. .

R.A. Datoek Besar and Dr . R. Roolvink in the ir "Hikajat Abdullah", 1953,

say that his style in the "Hikayat" leaves much to be desir ed , and is often un -

intel ligible. Unfortunately they suggest no reasons for thi s. On the contrary,

they s ti ll t end to emphasi se Abdull ah 's Malayness saying "Keluarga Abdullah,

ma sh ip u n s en d ir in ja b u ha n b er a sa l Me Z ay u , t et ap i sudah. b e rb er a pa t ur un a n l am a -

1tya menetap di-semanandjvttg Malaka" ( P. IX) , a comment which would be more

app ropriate to one of th e old Str aits families than it is to Abdullah's family of

which the first to be born in the country was Abdullah's father. '

A.H. Edrus too, in his "Kesah Pelayaran Abdullah Munshi", 1960, points

out many of Abdullah's mistakes in Malay usage, bu t o ffers no explanation of

them. And here too, in the preface to his work, (although this preface is not •written by the author), we find it implied that Abdullah was brought up in the

Malay" adat' and that his mother-tongue was Malay, both of which implicationsare demonstrably incorrect.

Another modern wri ter who cri ti cis es Abdull ah 's styl e i s Kassim Ahmad,

in his "Kisali Pelayaran Abdullah Ka-Kelantan dan Judah" 1960. Surprisingly

this writer not only calls Abdullah a Malay but also a "bumiputera" (P. 2), although

he lat er qua li fi es this and says Abdull ah was not a Me[aYIlJati (P. 10":'11).

At least, however, this author does attempt an explanation as to why

Abdullah's style has so many weaknesses. He attributes it finally to the

"Hikayat"s and o ther books wh ich Abdullah studied, implying that th ey were

not works of pure Malay origin, and a lso to the fac t that h is t eachers were Arabs

or Indians. Yet I think it isclear that Abdullah must have studied every H ikayat

known at the t ime, and certainlyhe was wellacquainted with the (,Sejaral: Melayu ."

As to his t eachers, a smentioned ear li er , t hough they Were for the most par t

his fellow "Peranakkan Kelings", yet they also included the two "MelaYIl Jati"teachers, Datok Suleiman and Datok Astur.

However, in seeking the reason for Abdul lah' s bad Malay style I do not see

that Weneed go any fur th er than the facts as evidenced: in his own" Hikayat" ;

for once i t is rea li sed, or perhaps one should say acknowledged, tha t Abdul lah

was a "Peranakkalz KeZing", and that Malay in its finer points was for him a

80


learnt language super-imposed on his "bazaar" Malay, the~ surely these fai lings

in usage and idiom are completely understandable, and fal l into place.

To point out Abdullah's bad Malay style, and the reasons for it, is by no

means to deny his importance inMalay literature. .. F rom the histor ical point of view his works a re of the greatest interest, for

without th em we would know far less th an Wedo of the people and places and

conditions of life which he wrote about.. . .Considered asworks of l iterature Abdullah's wri tings have a two-fold impor-

t ance . F irst of a ll , both because of their for thright v iews and the ir journali st ic

manner which burst upon the world of Malay literature as a comp lete novel~,

they ga~e new life and stir red new th inking in Malay writing. That was their

long term effect. ..Secondly, his works are inherently good read~. ~any of his passa~es,

even those dea ling wi th small mat te rs, a re of ab~orbmg interest and .very .l~e-

like, enab ling u s to see the scenes viv id l?" ~ this respect n:uch of his :"ntmg

is admirable. His basic humanity too, illspite of some unk ind laps~, is con-

t inuallyapparent, and many episodes in his "Hikayat" are deeply movmg.

But when his books are u sed in liter ar y studies Wehave to remember that

they are examples of Malay written by a scholarly foreigner, whose mother-tongue

was Tamil and whose Malay style was built on the foundation of his "bazaar"

Malay.

I find it astonishing that his works have been held up as examples of goodMalay s tyle for the pas t hundred years, and that even such a f ine Malay schola r

as Wi lkinson should have thought so highly ofAbdull ah 's styl e as to t. ake~o le~s

than 15,000 examples f rom Abdull ah 's works to il lust ra te the In:eanmgs illhis

large dictionary. Surely it would have been better to con fine his examp les to

the many acknowledged Malay works which were available.

Abdullah's work s were not only required read ing for many decades for

expatr iate Governmen t Officers during the colonial era, bu t were even used

extens ively in Malay school s and col leges. Although they are ~es .sused now,

i t isamusing to see a current poster displayed inMalay scho?ls. depi:tmg A?dullah

"Munshi " in a dark-coloured Malay baju and songkok, c la iming him, as I t were,

tobe aMalay writer ofthe Malay language, whereas infact he Wasa "Perattakk~n",

who dressed as Thomson says, " in the usual style of Malacca Tamils",

including a square skull-cap, which was almost certainly white.

Per haps, though, we should not be worried that Abdullah's works have

been taught to Malay ch ild ren as literature for so many decades, because thefact remains that h is "bazaar" usages have not at all contaminated the basic

idiomatic Malay language, which is s ti ll universal ly in use.

Only Abdull ah 's inadvert ant moderni sm has lef t i ts mark, and tha t we need

not regret.

81



H. F. O'B. TRAILL}MBRAS, VOL. 52

Acknowledgements

r am grateful to a number of persons who have given me help on matters

rel at ing to thi s ar ti cl e, par ti cu la rly to En. Beda Lim of the Libra ry of the Univer-

sity of Malaya who greatly facilitated my work there, and to En. Ibrahim b.

Ismai l of the same Libra ry who arranged for meto see a ll the i tems in the Libraryconcerning Abdull ah "Munshi" and helped me to check the Jawi text on several

points, as well asfortifying me by reading through the finished article unflinchingly.

Also to Dr. Singaravelu of the Dep t. of Ind ian Studies, University o f Malaya,

for information on the name "Peri achee" ; and to En. Aboe Hassan of the Br it ishLibrary for showing me the relevant works in that Library.

i·'

r

Works Consulted

1. Abdull ah bin Abdul Kadir. "Hikayat Abdull ah bin Abdul Kadi r, Munshi ". Malaya

Publishing House Lrd., Singapore 1949. (Malay Literature Series 4).

2. Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir. "Hikayat Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, Munshi". Jawi Edition,1849.

3. Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, "Kesah Pelayanm Abdullah". Malaysia Publications Ltd.,Singapore, 1965. (Siri Kesusasteman Melayu Bi!. 2.)

4. Abdullah b. Abdul Kadir. "Shner Kampong Gelam T'erbaknr", Ed. C. Skinner.J.M.B.R.A.S., Vol XLV Part 1. 1973.

5. Abdul Rahman Kasbon, "Perbandingan Raj a Ali Hajj dan Abdul lah bin Abdul Kadir

Munshi sebagai Sejarahwan." Dewan Bahasa. Jilid x iv B il . 1 2 Des. 1970.

6 . Azmi b. Iunid, "An appraisal of "Kesah Pelayaran Abdullah ka-Kelantan" as an Historical

work." Undated paper. Universi ty of Malaya Library. '"

7. Coope, A.E. "The Voyage of Abdullah". Oxford Universi ty Press. Kuala Lumpur,1967.

8 . Edrus , A.H. "Pengajian Kesah Pclayaran Abdullah Munshi". Singapore. 1960.

9. Ely.s b. Omar, B.A. Thesis, University of Malaya, 1965.

10. "Hikayat Hang Tuah". Kassirn Ahmad (Ed.). Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur,1975.

11. Hil l, A.H. "'The Hikayat Abdullah." Oxford University Press, 1970.

12. Idris Ibrahim. "Modenisai dalam Sas tra Malayu ujud sebelum Munshi Abdullah I" BeritaHadan.9-4-1975.

13. I smail Hussein, Prof ., "The Study of 'Tradi tional Malay Literature". Dewan Bahasa danPustaka, Kuala Lumpur, 1974.

14. Kassim Ahmad. "IGsah Pelayaran Abdullah Ka-Kelantan dan Judah"; 1960 Oxford Uni-

versity Pres. Kuala Lumpur. Malayan Publishing House Singapore.

15. Mohd. Wahiduddin b. Abd. Wahab. "Abdullah Munshi as an Histori an". GraduationExercise, University of Malaya, 1965.

16. Pawang Ana dan Raja Haj i Yahyn. "Hikayat Anggun Che' Tunggal". Oxford Universi tyPress. Kuala Lumpur, 1964.

17. Raja Ali. "'Tufat ul Nali.". Malaysia Publications Ltd., Singapura, 1965.

18. Raja Chulan, "Misa Melayu". Penerbitan Pustnka Antara, Kuala Lumpur, 1968.

82

PART 2, 1979 AN INDIAN PROTAGONIST OF TIIE MALAY LANGUAGE

19. R.A. Datoek Besar dan Dr. R. Rcolvink. "Hikajat Abdullah". Penerbit Djembatnn,Djakarta/Amsterdam, 1953.

20. "Sejarah. Melayu", W.G. Shellabear (Ed.). Penerbit Fajar Bakti Sdn. Bhd., Kuala Lumpur,1977.

21. Thomson, J.T'. "Hakayi t Abdul lah (bin Abdul Kadar) Munshi". Henry S. King andCo. London, 1874.

22. Wan Shamsuddin M. Yusof f. "Sejarah Sastcm Melayu Moden". Pustaka Antara. KualaLumpur, 1976.

23. Wilkinson, R.J. "A MoIaY-English Dictionary". Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, 1955.

24. Winstedt , Sir Richard. A History of Classical Malay Literature J.M.B.R.A.S. VO! ' xxxi,Part 3, 1958.

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Munshi Abdullah - An Indian Protaganist of the Malay Language

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