Malay was once a language used by people who lived in rural areas, along riverbanks, beside rice fields, and in maritime communities along the coast of the peninsula. The Malay Peninsula developed strong oral traditions, including proverbs or proverbial sayings that captured the received wisdom of its communities, and the Malay proverbs assembled in this book provide a vivid portrait of village life, with many references to interactions with forests, plants, birds, wildlife, and fish. These proverbs, which were in many cases first written down by pioneer British civil servants, such as Sir Hugh Clifford, Sir William Maxwell, and R. J. Wilkinson, help preserve the richness of the Malay language and cultural elements that might otherwise have been lost.

The Author

Edward Shaw Hose, C.M.G. (1871-1946) was the son of the Right Rev. George Frederick Hose, former Bishop of Singapore and founder president of the MBRAS. Hose was born on 25 November 1871 and entered the Civil Service of the Federated Malay States (F.M.S) in 1891 as a Junior Officer in Perak. He served with distinction in several capacities in the F.M.S., mostly in Perak, before being appointed Colonial Secretary in 1924 after having received a C.M.G. in 1923. This particular appointment was due mostly to the exceptional ability he displayed when he acted as Chief Secretary of the F.M.S. during a particularly difficult period in 1923. Hose retired in the early 1930s. Like his father, he was a religious man and was deeply connected throughout his life with church affairs.