Monday 22 February 2010

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 15th 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.


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

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