The teaching of Malay at the School of Oriental Studies, London
C.O. Blagden, Reader in Malay at the University of London, published this first-person account in 1923 describing his five years of teaching Malay at the School of Oriental Studies (SOAS). The article’s central argument is that a systematic, phonetics-based, colloquial-first approach to teaching Malay to European beginners is both more effective than the traditional munshi method and essential to the future of Malay studies in Britain.
Summary
Blagden’s article is a detailed pedagogical account of his methodology at SOAS, structured around the principle that the spoken language must be the exclusive starting point for European pupils. He devotes early lessons to a careful exposition of Malay sounds—vowels, final unexploded p and t, the distinction between final h and the glottal stop, stress patterns, and intonation—arguing that most Englishmen mispronounce Malay because neither their ears nor their tongues have been systematically trained. From pronunciation he moves to syntax, building progressively from simple two- and three-word groups (e.g., rumah besar ini) through verbless sentences to full constructions with transitive verbs, pronouns, and particles. He explicitly contrasts this approach with the traditional munshi method, which he criticizes for its inability to generalize: a munshi would present a sentence of “type A,” reject the pupil’s analogous attempt as “type B,” yet be unable to articulate the principle distinguishing the two.
The article also addresses the relationship between colloquial and literary Malay, insisting that the two styles differ so markedly that concurrent study from the outset confounds them in the pupil’s mind. Blagden mounts a pointed defence of Malay grammar against those who claim the language has none, arguing that grammar properly understood is the whole system and rationale of a language’s construction, not merely its affixal morphology. He notes the influence of Chinese syntax on Bazaar Malay (particularly the pre-nominal demonstrative) and stresses that while systematic teaching must be based on the standard colloquial, pupils must also be introduced to the foreign modifications they will encounter in towns.
The article closes with an institutional advocacy. Blagden reports that only about a fifth of his pupils were Government officials, and that the Colonial Office and other departments have not availed themselves of SOAS’s facilities. He proposes the appointment of a young educated Malay as assistant to the Reader to help edit unpublished manuscripts held in England and to share teaching duties, following the School’s existing practice of pairing European lecturers with native assistants in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Chinese, and Japanese.
Key Findings
- Blagden had taught Malay at SOAS for five years (c. 1918–1923), with nearly fifty pupils in total, just over a fifth of whom were women; he also had two Chinese pupils and one Malay pupil, the son of a Sultan.
- Only about a fifth of his pupils were Government officials; the majority were men with commercial or agricultural careers in view, and with one exception all attended on their own initiative without prompting or assistance from Government.
- He estimated that two to three months of his teaching was equivalent to the first six months of a beginner in the East who arrived knowing no Malay at all.
- SOAS enrolled 400–500 pupils a year across all languages, but Malay had not yet received the attention it deserved relative to other vernaculars.
- The University of London was the only institution in Great Britain (or, so far as Blagden knew, in the British Empire) where Malay was taught; in Holland and France the language had been taught for many years.
- Blagden identified a specific gap in the literature: while adequate texts existed for literary Malay, he still felt the want of materials for learning the colloquial.
Conclusion
Blagden’s definitive historical takeaway is that the teaching of Malay in London—begun under the adverse circumstances of the war, the rubber slump, the general depression of trade, and the absence of official support—must not be allowed to lapse. He frames the survival of the readership as a matter of institutional interest and scholarly continuity rather than personal ambition, warning that if it is abolished it will be “not for want of a competent successor” but only for lack of sufficient pupils to warrant the post.
Context
- This article provides a rare contemporary insider’s account of SOAS’s early Malay programme and the institutional politics of colonial language training in the 1920s, documenting the gap between the practical needs of the colonial service and the willingness of British departments to fund preparatory language instruction.