Sanskrit Derivational Morphemes in Malay

There are basically 14 prefixes and three suffixes from Sanskrit that Malay adopts. A characteristic of Sanskrit morphemes which is not present in Malay is that morphemes wan and wati (suffixes) are used to show gender difference. However, due to borrowing from Sanskrit, Malay also adopts the gender differentiation characteristic.

Table 13 below illustrates the adopted Sanskrit prefixes in Malay*.

	Prefix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	adi (adhi – beginning)	to show the beginning, the first or the greatest	adikara adiratna adiwangsa adiwarna adicita
2.	eka (eka – one)	one or single	ekabahasa ekawarna ekamatra ekanada ekasuku kata
3.	dwi (dvi – two or double)	two or double	dwihuruf dwiwarna dwimusim dwibahasa dwiganda dwifungsi dwifokus dwijantina dwitahunan dwibulanan dwisuku kata dwibahasawan
4.	pra (pra – prior or pre)	prior to, before	prakata prarasa prasangka prasaran prausul prasekolah prasejarah prawacana prasetia prasyarat prategasan
5.	sa/se (sa – with)	with something	sedaya saksama
6.	maha (maha – great)	the greatest	mahadewa mahaduta mahadewi mahaguru mahahakim maharaja maharajalela maha mulia maharani mahasiswa
7.	tri (tri – three)	three or triple	tribahasa trimatra trisula trihujung tritunggal triwindu trisemester trikaki trilipat triwangsa
8.	panca (panca – five)	five or multiple	pancaindera pancakembar pancalogam pancapersada pancaragam pancaroba pancasila pancawarna pancaguna pancabuta pancanegara pancarona pancasuara pancasona
9.	asta (asta – eight)	eight	astakona astaka
10.	antar (antar – inter)	between or in between	antara antarabangsa antariksa
11.	swa (swa – self)	self	swasta swadaya swalayan
12.	kala (kala – time)	related to time	kalakini kalakian
13.	sri/seri (sri – splendour)	splendour	seribumi serimuka serikandi serilancar serigunung seripantai
14.	tata (tata – rules)	rules or system	tatabahasa tatasuria tataetika tatalaku tatanama tatarakyat tatasusila

Table 14: Sanskrit prefixes adopted into Malay.

The table above demonstrates 14 Sanskrit prefixes which Malay adopts. Except for panca which is also used to refer to multiple instead of only five, other prefixes did not undergo any changes in meaning. These derivational prefixes are also mostly used with another loanword from Sanskrit, such as ratna (becomes adiratna), kata (becomes prakata) and bahasa (becomes tatabahasa). However, due to long history of contact between Sanskrit and Malay, Malay lexical items are also used with most of the prefixes, signaling an intimate borrowing between the two languages. For example, morpheme eka (such as ekasuku kata), dwi (such as dwibulanan), pra (such as prasyarat), tri (such as trikaki), panca (such as pancalogam), kala (such as kalakini), seri (such as serigunung) and tata (such as tatarakyat).

Other than prefixes, Malay also transfers suffixes from Sanskrit. Table 14 demonstrates the adopted suffixes from Sanskrit in Malay.

	Suffix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	wan (vant – possessive suffix)	to show person	angkasawan budayawan bangsawan biduan biarawan bahasawan dwibahasawan tribahasawan dermawan hartawan olahragawan sukarelawan usahawan wartawan negarawan sejarahwan ilmuwan beritawan
2.	wati (vanti – possessive suffix)	to show person (female)	angkasawati budayawati biarawati dermawati olahragawati seniwati beritawati
3.	kala (kala – time)	related to time	adakala manakala purbakala

Table 15: Sanskrit suffixes adopted into Malay.

Table 14 above illustrates three Sanskrit suffixes which are transferred into Malay. As we can observe, the original meaning of the suffixes are retained. Although the suffixes are mostly used with another loanword from Sanskrit, there are also Malay lexical items being used with them, such as ilmuwan, sejarahwan, seniwati and adakala.

We can conclude that derivational morpheme transfer from Sanskrit into Malay comes with lexical items of Sanskrit origin more than Malay items or Malay items of other origins. This supports the claim that morpheme transfer occurs mostly together with the lexical items (whole-word transfer). Since contact with Sanskrit happened for thousands of years, the borrowing is intimate and involves almost all semantic domains in Malay. Derivational morphemes are also adopted by Malay from Sanskrit and used with some Malay lexical items to form new words as we have seen, such as kala, tata, eka, dwi, tri, pra and seri.

References

Casparis, J.G. de. (1997). Sanskrit Loanwords in Indonesia: An annotated check-list of words from Sanskrit in Indonesian and Traditional Malay. Maintained by Cooper, D. (2004). Sanskrit Loan Words in Indonesian/Malaysian. Retrieved on 15^th June 2004 from http://crcl.th.net/indic/sktbyin.htm

Noresah Baharom (Chief Ed.) (2002). Kamus Dewan Edisi Ketiga. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Zainal Abidin Safarwan (2002). Kamus Besar Bahasa Melayu Utusan. Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications & Distributors.

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*With reference to Casparis, ibid. Examples are from Casparis, ibid, Noresah Baharom, ibid and Zainal Abidin Safarwan, ibid.

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