Spraeck ende Woord-Boeck

bibliography

text notes

list of words

Bibliography

title:		Spraeck ende Woord-Boek
edition:		Denys Lombard (éd.), Le «Spraek ende Woord-Boek» de Frederick de Houtman, Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1970. Publications de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient, volume LXXIV.
print source:		Frederick de Houtman van Gouda, Spraek ende woord-boeck, Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche woorden met vele Arabische woorden: ende twaelf tsamensprekinghen inde Maleysche ende drie inde Madagaskarsche spraken ..., Amsterdam: Jan Ebertsz., 1603.
date:		print source:  1603;
provenance:		text:  set in Aceh, based on experiences in Aceh;
words:		10169 words
references:		to the numbered conversations and speeches (1-12) and the paragraphs in each.

 

Editorial notes and bibliography

De Houtman presents twelve imagined conversations between two or more interlocutors.  The Dutch version of each speech is followed by a Malay couterpart.   Each speaker is identified in turn by his initial, in the manner of the text of a play.

As Lombard notes (p.8), all but one of the conversations are set in Aceh, and reveal many incidental details of everyday life as de Houtman would have experienced it.  However, lest it be thought that the conversations are in any sense transcriptions, note that the ninth is set in the Netherlands: those present are invited to draw near to the fire to keep themselves warm!

The representation of Malay is idiosyncratic and very inconsistent.   Lombard adds translations of the Malay into Indonesian, and of the Dutch into French.   However the Lombard's Indonesian follows the Malay original very closely indeed, with regard to word-division for instance, so that the meaning is not always made clearer.  To assist with use of this text, a parallel version with normalised spellings has been prepared.

In a few cases, obvious misprints in the original have been repaired: misreadings by the Dutch compositor, e.g. of m as ni; or typesetting mistakes, e.g. u for n.  These corrections have always been noted.

Reference:

W. Linehan, “The earliest wordlists and dictionaries of the Malay language”, Journal of the Malayan Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, 22.1 (1949): 183-187.

 

Preparation

Added:  January 2004

Scanned in Canberra for the MCP.