Notes on names of places in the island of Singapore and its vicinity
H. T. Haughton published this etymological survey in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1889, at a moment when Singapore’s original Malay and Orang Laut populations were rapidly diminishing under the pressure of Chinese and Indian immigration. His overarching thesis is one of urgent documentation: the indigenous toponymy of the island and its surrounding waters was already being corrupted beyond recognition in official charts and maps, and he sought to record the correct Malay (and a few Chinese) forms before they were lost entirely.
Summary
Haughton’s article is a systematic philological exercise covering the names of rivers, islands, points, straits, and a small number of Chinese place names in the Settlement of Singapore and its immediate vicinity. His stated audience is the European resident who is “not thoroughly conversant with Malay, yet is disposed to take an intelligent interest in the subject” (p. 75). The driving historical problem is one of linguistic erosion: as the old Malay inhabitants died out or migrated, and as the scattered remnants of the aboriginal Orang Laut shrank, the names they had given to the landscape were being mangled by successive generations of non-Malay users and by cartographic convention.
The article draws on several categories of evidence. Favre’s Malay dictionary supplies many of the lexical identifications (e.g., Ubin as Javanese for “squared stone,” Beronok as “a kind of sea-worm”). Official documents—the 1885 Government Map, Admiralty charts, and Sailing Directions—provide the corrupted forms that Haughton corrects. Oral testimony from local residents, particularly the Orang Laut of Kampong Kopit, and the published work of colleagues D. F. A. Hervey and W. E. Maxwell supply alternative etymologies and traditional narratives. Haughton also extends his scope briefly to Johor territory to illustrate how corruption operates across political boundaries, using the case of Tanjong Penyusok (Point Roumania) as his principal example.
The methodological approach is essentially comparative: Haughton juxtaposes the form found in official documents against the form attested in local usage, then offers a Malay or Javanese etymology to explain the original. Where the evidence is uncertain, he flags the doubt explicitly (as with Bukit Serapong, where the derivation from apong “drift wood” is called “possibly” and the formation “doubtful”) (p. 77). The article thus functions as both a reference work and a small act of cultural preservation.
Key Findings
- The name “Roumania” (or “Romania,” “Rumania”) applied to a point near Tanjong Penyusok is a corruption of Rumenia, the Malay name for the fruit tree Bonea microphylla; the name originally belonged to Pulau Rumenia and Kampong Rumenia, not to the point itself (pp. 75–76).
- “St. John’s Island” is a corruption of Sa-Kijang (a roe-deer), with the two islands named Sa-Kijang Bandera (West) and Sa-Kijang Pelepah (East); the 1885 Government Map further corrupts Bandera into “Berak” (p. 79).
- Pulau Khatib Bongsu (“the island of the youngest-born preacher”) appears in charts as “Kitch Bungsee” and “Kita Bangsa,” illustrating the degree of phonetic distortion in official cartography (p. 79).
- The 1885 Government Map and Admiralty charts confuse Tanjong Merawang with Tanjong Kampong (itself a confusion with Tanjong Karang), and the point actually marked as Tanjong Merawang in the charts is in reality Tanjong Tuas (pp. 81–82).
- Three Orang Laut tribal names are preserved in the toponymy: Semulun (Pulau Semulun, wrongly written “Sembilan” on the 1885 map), Seletar (Sungei Seletar), and Beduanda Kalang (from the river Kalang) (pp. 77, 80).
- Pulau Brani is properly Pulau Ayer Brani, named after a well at the summit whose water was believed to possess potent qualities; a natural rock tank (kolam) on the Tanjong Pagar side received its overflow and was used for bathing, with remains still visible in 1889 (p. 78).
Conclusion
Haughton’s definitive takeaway is that the indigenous toponymy of Singapore was in a state of active and irreversible decay, and that the official cartographic record—Government maps, Admiralty charts, and sailing directions—was not a reliable witness to the names as they had been used by the communities who originally coined them. His work is a snapshot of a linguistic landscape at the threshold of disappearance, and its value lies in the specific corrections it offers to the documentary record of the 1880s.
Context
- Haughton was writing as a colonial-era resident addressing a European readership; his preface explicitly frames the work as service to those “not thoroughly conversant with Malay,” positioning the indigenous toponymy as a curiosity to be decoded rather than a living linguistic system (p. 75).
- The article relies on Favre’s Dictionnaire malais and on the published work of Hervey and Maxwell, and it was published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the principal scholarly outlet for colonial-era Southeast Asian studies in the region.