{"id":2468,"date":"2026-09-11T12:08:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2026-10-08T14:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T12:51:21","slug":"the-first-malay-grammar-1736","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/the-first-malay-grammar-1736\/","title":{"rendered":"The first Grammar of the Malay lan\u00adguage, 1736"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGrammar\u201d is the syste\u00adma\u00adtic frame\u00adwork of rules that governs the struc\u00adtu\u00adre, com\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adti\u00adon, and use of a natu\u00adral lan\u00adguage. For humans stu\u00addy\u00ading lan\u00adguages, a text\u00adbook grammar has often been a key resour\u00adce to advan\u00adce in the lear\u00adning pro\u00adcess. Not so for AI: it is gram\u00adma\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly com\u00adpe\u00adtent wit\u00adhout using a for\u00admal grammar becau\u00adse its gram\u00adma\u00adti\u00adcal \u201cbeha\u00advi\u00ador\u201d emer\u00adges from trai\u00adning on vast amounts of texts. Modern \u201cLar\u00adge Lan\u00adguage Models\u201d (LLMs) thus do not usual\u00adly con\u00adtain a trans\u00adpa\u00adrent, human-rea\u00adda\u00adble grammar modu\u00adle \u2013 they are able to impli\u00adci\u00adt\u00adly app\u00adly gram\u00adma\u00adti\u00adcal rules wit\u00adhout sta\u00adting them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Euro\u00adpeans \u2013 sea\u00adfa\u00adrers, trad\u00aders and colo\u00adnists \u2013 arri\u00adved in Sou\u00adtheast Asia and the Indo\u00adne\u00adsi\u00adan archi\u00adpe\u00adla\u00adgo in the 16th<\/sup> cen\u00adtu\u00adry, they nee\u00added Malay pri\u00adma\u00adri\u00adly in two are\u00adas \u2013 to inter\u00adact with the courts in Suma\u00adtra and the Malay pen\u00adin\u00adsu\u00adla, and in in trade and com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adca\u00adti\u00adon across the Archi\u00adpe\u00adla\u00adgo whe\u00adre it had been used as a lan\u00adguage of com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adca\u00adti\u00adons for cen\u00adtu\u00adries. To learn Malay, an oral approach ser\u00adved them per\u00adfect\u00adly well for a long time \u2013 picking up this lan\u00adguage in con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adti\u00adon, using word\u00adlists and so on \u2013 even\u00adtual\u00adly spea\u00adking in a cor\u00adrect or under\u00adstan\u00adda\u00adble way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The need for for\u00admal lan\u00adguage ins\u00adtruc\u00adtion \u2013 and for a for\u00admal grammar \u2013 emer\u00adged with colo\u00adni\u00adal expan\u00adsi\u00adon and mis\u00adsio\u00adna\u00adry acti\u00advi\u00adties. At around 1680, mem\u00adbers of the Dutch cler\u00adgy embark\u00aded on a trans\u00adla\u00adti\u00adon of the bible into Malay. Malay had to be taught to offi\u00adci\u00adals. Yet it took ano\u00adther 50 years until the first grammar of Malay was prin\u00adted in Euro\u00adpe with funds of the Dutch East Indies Com\u00adpa\u00adny \u2013 in 1736 in Amster\u00addam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This grammar had been pro\u00addu\u00adced by a Swiss-Dutch pastor and Ori\u00aden\u00adta\u00adlist, Georg Hein\u00adrich Wernd\u00adly (1693\u22121744). As a pastor, he had lived bet\u00adween 1719\u20131726 in Padang, Makas\u00adsar and Bata\u00advia (today\u2019s Jakar\u00adta) and sub\u00adse\u00adquent\u00adly given the task to com\u00adple\u00adte the Bible trans\u00adla\u00adti\u00adon into Malay. His fami\u00adly roots are in Zurich from whe\u00adre his father had moved to Lin\u00adgen, Ger\u00adma\u00adny, working as a pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his grammar, Wernd\u00adly made sure that Malay text samples are pre\u00adsen\u00adted both in Roman and Ara\u00adbic script. At the time, Malay was writ\u00adten pri\u00adma\u00adri\u00adly in Ara\u00adbic script, and know\u00adledge of that script was essen\u00adti\u00adal. For that pur\u00adpo\u00adse, the prin\u00adter used type\u00adsets that were adapt\u00aded or new\u00adly crea\u00adted for this grammar. Werndly\u2019s tex\u00adtu\u00adal sources \u2013 the exam\u00adp\u00adle sen\u00adten\u00adces \u2013 are most\u00adly taken from Malay lite\u00adra\u00adtu\u00adre and reli\u00adgious books. He expo\u00adses us to the Malay of the Sul\u00adtana\u00adtes and courts much more than to that of the mar\u00adket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am inte\u00adre\u00adsted in the histo\u00adry of the Malay lan\u00adguage becau\u00adse of my work on Suma\u00adtran \u201csin\u00adgers of tales\u201d<\/a>. This week, I con\u00adsul\u00adted a copy of Werndly\u2019s grammar in the rea\u00adding room of the Ber\u00adne Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty Library\u2026It was an impec\u00adca\u00adble copy, after 300 years of sto\u00adrage (one out of two that I could loca\u00adte in Switz\u00ader\u00adland). When I men\u00adtio\u00adned this to the clerk on checking out, his remark was \u201cNot sure if our digi\u00adta\u00adli\u00adzed books will last that long\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Befo\u00adre finis\u00adhing this post, I put a que\u00adsti\u00adon to AI \u2013 \u201cwhich grammars were used to train LLMs on Malay?\u201d The ans\u00adwer was: \u201cThe\u00adre is no publicly docu\u00admen\u00adted list of tra\u00addi\u00adtio\u00adnal Malay or Indo\u00adne\u00adsi\u00adan grammars that were direct\u00adly inser\u00adted into, or syste\u00adma\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly used to train, the major gene\u00adral-pur\u00adpo\u00adse AI models\u201d. Howe\u00adver, the ans\u00adwer to the prompt lists the lan\u00adguage cor\u00adpus data\u00adba\u00adses \u2013 one of them with 4 bil\u00adli\u00adon words \u2013 that were used.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Euro\u00adpeans \u2013 sea\u00adfa\u00adrers, trad\u00aders and colo\u00adnists \u2013 arri\u00adved in Sou\u00adtheast Asia and the Indo\u00adne\u00adsi\u00adan archi\u00adpe\u00adla\u00adgo in the 16th<\/sup> cen\u00adtu\u00adry, they nee\u00added Malay pri\u00adma\u00adri\u00adly in two are\u00adas \u2013 to inter\u00adact with the courts in Suma\u00adtra and the Malay pen\u00adin\u00adsu\u00adla, and in in trade and com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adca\u00adti\u00adon across the Archi\u00adpe\u00adla\u00adgo. But the\u00adre was no for\u00admal writ\u00adten grammar.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2468"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2513,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2468\/revisions\/2513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jurgschneider.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}