Malajoe Batawi

During the late 1800s numerous books and newspapers had been published in Batavia (now Jakarta) using a creole form of Malay. These books, including translations of Chinese works, did not use a standardised language. Some were written entirely in one sentence, with a single capital letter at the beginning and a single full stop at the end.^[2]

Lie Kim Hok (1853–1912) was a journalist and teacher who wrote extensively in the creole. He considered the lack of standardisation appalling, and began to write a grammar of the language to ensure a degree of regularity in its use.^[2] The same year he published Malajoe Batawi, he released Kitab Edja (Spelling Book), a book to teach spelling to schoolchildren.^[3]

Malajoe Batawi's 116 pages consist of 23 pages discussing the use of capital letters and punctuation, 23 pages discussing word classes, and the remainder regarding sentence structure and writing.^[4] Lie discusses various morphemes, including the active-transitive morpheme [me(N)-] and the active-intransitive [ber-].^[5]

Lie identifies ten word classes in Malajoe Batawi, as follows:^[5]

Malajoe Batawi was published in 1884 by W. Bruining & Co. in Batavia. Tio Ie Soei, in his biography of Lie, describes it as first grammar of Batavian Malay,^[4] while linguist Waruno Mahdi calls it the first "elaborate grammar of a Malay dialect along modern lines".^[1] The book saw an initial print run of 500 copies.^[4] According to Tio, it came under consideration for use as teaching material in local schools. However, the publisher requested changes with which Lie disagreed, and ultimately the deal fell through.^[2] A second edition was published by Albrecht & Rusche in 1891,^[6] and towards his death in 1912 Lie began writing a new edition of Malajoe Batawi. However, he died before it could be completed.^[4]

In 1979, C.D. Grijns opined that, based on the primarily oral nature of Betawi, Lie did not base his Malajoe Batawi on spoken language, but the written language used by ethnic Chinese merchants.^[7] Malaysian press historian Ahmat B. Adam describes Lie as leaving "an indelible mark on the development of modern Indonesian language",^[8] while Mahdi writes that the grammar was the "most remarkable achievement of Chinese Malay writing" from a linguist's point of view.^[1]