Search

Although it belongs to a different tradition, Skinner’s Etymologicon plays an important part in the transmission of old words through English dictionaries in the seventeenth century. Over 50% of the items in his long appendix of old words are based, directly and indirectly, on Speght’s glossaries. This appendix may be looked upon as the first Middle English dictionary, meant for the educated reader and the scholar, rather than for the general public. The importance of Skinner to the present study lies in the fact that his selection influenced later English lexicographical works, and in that later English lexicographers turned to Skinner, rather than to Speght. Yet through Skinner they kept making use of Speght.

It is known throughout the world that the Mishnaioth are the crown and splendour of the Jews wherever they be scattered, for they are concise regulations incorporating the most select interpretations of all the commandments of our law received on Sinai, more precious than gold. Yet I saw many of the most wise and learned of my people stuttering over the pronunciation of many words instead of being precise. Few comprehend the conjugation of the verbs and the laws of accentuation, nor the pronouns, and so do not know their right from their left. I said to myself in my heart, the time has come to serve God and to open an entry to students who have been reading for days and years, to make it easier for them with pointing and signs to lighten their burdens, for the meanings are hidden and sealed.

In the West the Hikayat Patani has been known to exist ever since 1838. In that year Lieutenant Newbold published a “Note on Malayan MSS. and Books presented to the Society” in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, Vol. VII. “The Society” was evidently the Royal Asiatic Society, and more specifically its Madras Branch, and the list of Malay manuscripts included ten items, some of them consisting of several parts. As No. 6 Newbold mentions the “Hikayet Patani”, and goes on to say:1 “This is a history of the Malayan principality of Patani, now a province of Siam”. He then summarizes briefly what the text has to say about the founder of the state of Patani and his descendants, giving the names of the sultans of the first dynasty mentioned in the text, followed by the so-called Kalantan dynasty, which came to an end with the rule of “Alung Yunus”. After his death Patani fell into a state of anarchy and has never had a Raja or Bendahara since. “With a brief account of an invasion from Siam, and some curious instructions touching the Noubet and the twenty-four Ragams or musical modes, the work closes.” Newbold’s survey of this manuscript ends with a “tolerably literal translation” of the beginning of the MS., namely the description of the foundation of the city of Patani, and he concludes with the observation that this story of the foundation of Patani differs from that of the Sejarah Melayu.