Maxwell was a British colonial scholar-official and author of a manual of the Malay language, the appendix to which (p. 139) is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese for its list of Malay common phrases for the divisions of time. The citation occurs in the chapter on the calendar and the divisions of the day, where Snouck Hurgronje compares the Achehnese terminology with that of the Malays.
The Achehnese and the Malays, Snouck Hurgronje explains, use the same Arabic-derived names for the five times of prayer — maghrib, ‘isha, subh, lohor (zuhr), and so on — but their common phrases for the divisions of time, “though resembling those in the text in so far as they are partly drawn from natural phenomena, are not by any means all identical with them.” For comparative purposes he therefore refers the reader to “the appendix to Maxwell’s manual of the Malay language p. 139,” which gives a list of Malay phrases such as belum terbang lalat (“before the flies are astir,” just before daybreak), pecah panas (“when the heat commences,” sun-up), kering ambin (“when the dew dries,” about 8 A.M.), tengah naik (“when the sun is half way up,” 9 A.M.), and so on. The list forms “an interesting comparison” with the corresponding Achehnese phrases set out in the body of Snouck Hurgronje’s text.
The reference belongs to the comparative-linguistic method that pervades the early chapters of Vol. I, in which Achehnese usage is continually set side by side with that of the Malays, the Javanese, and the Arabs. Maxwell’s manual is one of the standard works of nineteenth-century Malay philology, alongside the writings of Lane (on Arabic), Skeat (on the Malays of the Peninsula), and the Dutch scholars of Netherlands-India such as Niemann and Van den Berg. The use made of it by Snouck Hurgronje — for a single comparative table of time-phrases — is modest, but characteristic: the Achehnese are situated, by such comparisons, within the wider Malay-Indonesian world, while at the same time being marked off from it by the peculiarities of their own language and customs.
See Also
- R. J. Wilkinson
- Walter William Skeat
- Edward William Lane
- G. H. Niemann
- L. W. C. van den Berg
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Acheh
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Maxwell was a British colonial scholar-official and author of a manual of the Malay language, the appendix to which (p. 139) is cited by Snouck Hurgronje in Vol. I of The Achehnese for its list of Malay common phrases for the divisions of time. The citation occurs in the chapter on the calendar and the divisions of the day, where Snouck Hurgronje compares the Achehnese terminology with that of the Malays.
The Achehnese and the Malays, Snouck Hurgronje explains, use the same Arabic-derived names for the five times of prayer — maghrib, ‘isha, subh, lohor (zuhr), and so on — but their common phrases for the divisions of time, “though resembling those in the text in so far as they are partly drawn from natural phenomena, are not by any means all identical with them.” For comparative purposes he therefore refers the reader to “the appendix to Maxwell’s manual of the Malay language p. 139,” which gives a list of Malay phrases such as belum terbang lalat (“before the flies are astir,” just before daybreak), pecah panas (“when the heat commences,” sun-up), kering ambin (“when the dew dries,” about 8 A.M.), tengah naik (“when the sun is half way up,” 9 A.M.), and so on. The list forms “an interesting comparison” with the corresponding Achehnese phrases set out in the body of Snouck Hurgronje’s text.
The reference belongs to the comparative-linguistic method that pervades the early chapters of Vol. I, in which Achehnese usage is continually set side by side with that of the Malays, the Javanese, and the Arabs. Maxwell’s manual is one of the standard works of nineteenth-century Malay philology, alongside the writings of Lane (on Arabic), Skeat (on the Malays of the Peninsula), and the Dutch scholars of Netherlands-India such as Niemann and Van den Berg. The use made of it by Snouck Hurgronje — for a single comparative table of time-phrases — is modest, but characteristic: the Achehnese are situated, by such comparisons, within the wider Malay-Indonesian world, while at the same time being marked off from it by the peculiarities of their own language and customs.
See Also
- R. J. Wilkinson
- Walter William Skeat
- Edward William Lane
- G. H. Niemann
- L. W. C. van den Berg
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Acheh
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.