Loanwords: An Impact to Malay

Language and Culture

Nor Hashimah Jalaluddin

Linguistics Program
School of Language Studies and Linguistics
UKM
 Loanwords

1 • A common phenomenon for any languages in the world.

• It has been taken place for years

• It happened when two or more languages came into contact.

2 • There are some necessities for the borrowing to take place.

• Colonialization and business activities during Malacca
civilization has exposed the Malay language to borrowings.

• Impact on linguistics
3 • Impact on social and culture
• One of it’s positive impact - it enriches one’s language
 Form of Loanwords

• Importation
Linguistics • Partial substitution
• substitution

• Lexical gaps
Social • Special effects
• Euphemism
 Examples (linguistics)

Partial
Importation substitution
substitution
• Musique (Fr) – • Anti penuaan • Brandy (Eng) -
music (Eng) (Malay) anti cognac (French)
• fikir(Malay) - ageing (Eng) • Monday (Eng) –
fikr (Ar) • live-shendung lunae dies
(Ger) – live- (Latin)
broadcast (Eng)
 Examples (social)

Lexical gap Special effect Euphemism

• Komputer • Kolagen • Security

(computer) (collagen) (jaga)
• Psikologi • Savvy • Cleaner
(psychology) (Proton) (pencuci)
Sources of Loanwords

English

Sanskrit Malay Arabic

Chinese,
Dutch,
etc.
 Number of Loanwords

Source English Arabic Sanskrit China Tamil

Kamus 2381 1791 490 188 57

Dewan 3
Example of loanwords

Mandarin: amoi, anglo, angpau,

camca, cincau, ceongsam, bohsia,
bihun, sempoa, etc.

Sanskrit: bahasa, masa, gerhana,

catur, suami, isteri, muda, remaja,
udara, gempa, singa, serigala, etc

Arabic: wakaf, falak, fikir, bab,

falsafah, hamil, tawaf, halal,
hidayah, etc.
English: computer, glass, school,
electric, index, logic, project,
genetic, motivation, etc
Linguistics Processes Involved in
Loanwords

phonology morphology

semantics
 Phonology

Vowel at final
No. of syllables Clusters
position

Monosyllabic; bab Maaf (apology), saat

Tuala (towel),
(chapter), had (moment), manfaat
wanita (ladies), bola
(limit), bas (bus),bag (benefit), taat (loyal)
(ball),
(beg), pos (post) , fi’il (behaviour)

More than 2 Vowel harmony [i,u],-

high vowel for final Psikologi
syllables: bahasa position, [e,o] mid
(language), mereka (psychology), brek
high vowel for pre (brake), krim
(they), masyarakat final position:
(community), (cream), status
/anglo/, /kale/, (status), kren
kemeja (shirt) /cige/,/ape/ (crane)
 Morphology

Pro: Pro Multi: Multi Sub: Sub Poli: Poly Auto: Auto
Pro-Islam, Pro- Multi-bahasa, Sub-disiplin, Poliklinik, Autograf,
Mahathir, pro- multi-etnik, sub-topik, sub- polisemi, autobiografi,
Demokrasi multi- dimensi dialek politeknik autoformat
-isme: -ism -al : -al -si: -tion -is: -ist Anti-anti
Hinduisme, Elektrikal, Dokumentasi, Empiris, anti kerajaan,
jurnalisme, logikal, muzikal apresiasi, kartunis, anti rasuah,
kolonialisme liberalisasi feminis anti demokrasi

Pra- pre Dwi- bi Pasca- post Maha - Tri- tri

Pra-sejarah, Dwibahasa, Pasca-siswazah, Maharaja, Trimester,
pra-universiti, Dwitahunan, pasca- maharani, trilogi, tribunal
pramatang dwikutub merdeka, mahasiswa
pasca-kolonial
 Enrichment through Morphology

• Some loanwords assimilated immensely with Malay

1. language.
• Eg: Arabic, English, Sanskrit but not Chinese and Tamil

• From root word a-l-m ( ), we can form:

2. • Alim, mualim, alaf, alam, ulama, ilmu, alamat, amal, amil, etc.
• From root word k-t-b, we can form:
• Kitab, kutub, maktab, katib, khutbah, etc

• From the root it forms various words, hence it can be

3. further expanded with affixes:
• Diamal, mengamalkan, pengamalan, diamali, teramal.
 Cont.
• Classification : klasifikasi,
English • Diklasifikasikan, mengklasifikasi, pengklasifikasian.
• Motivation: Motivasi,
• Dimotivasikan, memotivasi, termotivasi, bermotivasi
• Bahasa:
• Membahasakan, dibahasa
Sanskrit • Catur:
• Mencatur, dicatur, tercatur, percaturan

• Cheongsam
• *menceongsam, *diceongsam, *terceongsam
Chinese • Sempoa:
• *disempoa, *menyempoa, *tersempoa.
 Cont.

The
Assimilation
formation of
in the Malay
different Enriches the
derivative
words from Malay
system
one root vocabularies
especially
form as in
affixes
Arabic.
 Semantics
Broadening – the core meaning has expanded to various
meaning. Nevertheless the extension of the meaning are
cognitively motivated.

Pension (Eng): Nyonya (Chi):

Wakaf (Ar):
* sum of money paid to *Married woman
* stop (end of a people above certain age,
sentence) disabled people, widow, - A reference to woman
retired employee. from Baba descendents
- name of a place (Wakaf
Che Yeh), - Referring to an old - Sweet delicacies (kuih).
- A small hut (for resting) people, old town, stop - An embroided ‘kebaya’
producing (chicken). wear with a sarung
- Common property especially among
(Muslim cemetery) -name for association
(Persatuan Pencen) Nyonya (long skirt)
 Cont.

Narrowing – the meaning has been

narrowed from many to a specific meaning.
Samseng (Chi) Phalatas (Sans)
i.to pay last respect Kitab (Ar): From any form of
to the demised , ii. reward (fruits,
from any type of animals, abstract) to
Gangster books to specifically only specific reward
has narrowed to religious books for the good deed
gangster only from God.
 Social and Cultural Impact

Apart from linguistics, loanwords has given an

impact to our social and culture

In today’s world, when the language contact has

become more rigorous, the borrowing will
become more common to languages.
 Examples
• scientific terms are borrowed to capture the rapid growth of knowledge.
Filling The religious terms are safer to retain the form and meaning to avoid
misunderstanding.
the gap • Computer, generative, linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, mudharabah,
halal, tawaf, solat etc.

• For businesses purposes, difficult loanwords are used to make the product
being more highly appraised.
Special • To associate with more sophisticated lifestyle and cosmopolitan appeal
effects • Kolagen (collagen), kondominium (condominium), Mont Terrace Golf Club,
Seremban 2, H1N1 flu (swine flu)

• In Japanese, euphemisms collected appeared in the advertisements

Euphe- belonging to health and beauty field.
mism • In Malay, euphemism also appeared in promoting a job or services.
• Security, Cleaner, Spa, GRO, Constable, promoter, cashier, etc.
Positive Impact of Loanwords

Enriches the
Malay
vocabularies

Euphemism

Special
effects

Filling the
gap
 Conclusion
Language contact happens everyday. Perhaps we
will have loanwords from Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Vietnam, Myanmar , etc in our vocabularies in a
near future

On one hand, it helps to enrich our vocabularies

On the other hand, the effort to secure the use of

our national language is very essential . This is to
ensure the national language becomes the main
language and simultaneously reflects our identity.