Study of Chainese Lone Words in Malay
Study of Chainese Lone Words in Malay
Study of Chainese Lone Words in Malay
I. Historical Background
Chinese loanwords in Malay and Indonesian languages in the main are
derived from South Fujian dialects. In the eight Malay-Indonesian dic-
tionaries studied, I have found altogether 507 Chinese loanwords, of
which a rough check has shown at least 454 to be derived from South
Fujian dialects, representing 89.5% of the total Chinese vocabulary
found in the Malay and Indonesian languages.
The reason why South Fujian dialect loanwords form such a great
majority of the total number of Chinese loanwords in the Malay and
Indonesian dictionaries is provided by certain historical and social
factors. To begin with, it was a long established practice for South Fujian
people to go overseas in search of a new life. The South Fujian region
mostly consists of barren mountains (80%), with very little land for
cultivation. This made the people more vulnerable to hardship in the
event of war or some natural calamity. They were thus forced to seek
ways and means of evading hardship. As the old saying goes, 'Men are
KONG YUAN ZHI, a graduate from Peking University who has studied at the Universi-
ties of Jakarta and Leiden, is Associate Professor of Indonesian at Peking University.
Specialized in Indonesian linguistics and stylistics, he has published Chinese translations of
numerous works of modern Indonesian literature as well as original articles in these fields.
His address is: Indonesian Section, Oriental Languages Department, Peking University,
Beijing, China.
Chinese Loanwords in Malay-Indonesian Languages 453
Fujian
(Hokkian) 379,611 65.1% 554,981 46.6%
Kejia
75,170 12.9% 200,736 16.9%
(Hakka)
Chaozhou 1 0/
5,263 87,812 7.4%
(Tio-Tsyu)
Guangzhou T O/
39,878 136,130 11.4%
(Kwongfu) / /o
The above table shows that around the year 1935 the number of South
Fujian people settling in Java and Madura came to 65.1% of the total
number of overseas Chinese there - a much larger percentage than
for the Hakka and Cantonese. It further indicates that the South
Fujian people in Java constituted nearly one half (46.6%) of the total
number of overseas Chinese in Indonesia. Moreover, the majority of the
South Fujian people resident in Indonesia, namely 68.4%, were living in
Java and Madura. Many of them were engaged in writing, translating
and editorial work, publishing a great many newspapers, magazines
and books of various kinds. They were especially active in Batavia
(present-day Jakarta), Semarang (Central Java) and Surabaya (East
Java).
According to statistics supplied by the French scholar Claudine Sal-
mon, the number of overseas writers and translators in Indonesia (both
migrants and their descendants) from the 1870s to the 1960s totalled
806. Their combined works numbered 2757 volumes, plus 248 anony-
mous volumes, making a total of 3005 volumes, excluding re-editions,
consisting of 73 plays, 183 syair-type poems, 233 translations of
458 Kong Yuan Zhi
Western works, 759 translations from Chinese, and 1398 original novels
and short stories (Salmon 1981:10).
Translations from Chinese writings in this period include such popular
stories as 'The Romance of the Three Kingdoms', 'The Water's Edge',
'The Pilgrimage to the West', etc. In the category of stories about
knights-errant, there are translations of 'Extraordinary Heroes from
Guandong', 'The Jungle Sword-Fighters', and so on. Numerous of the
above-mentioned works went through many editions, some of them
abridged and revised, and some even complete translations. For in-
stance, from the 100-chapter 'The Pilgrimage to the West', the story of
'A Visit of Emperor Li Shimin to Inferno' was translated in six different
editions (Oey forthcoming). These works not only are very popular
among the overseas Chinese, but are also widely read by Malay-Indone-
sians. The following will serve as an illustrative example. When 'The
Pilgrimage to the West', translated by Auw Ing Kiong, was broadcast in
serial form by the Solo broadcasting station on Friday evenings in or
around the year 1936, it had enthusiastic listeners among Indonesian
people of all classes, including the Palace residents (Oey forthcoming).
The translations of Chinese knight-errant stories are likewise very
popular with Malay-Indonesian readers. Up to the 1980s, every edition
of the Indonesian monthly Selecta included knight-errant stories written
in Indonesian by South Fujianese authors such as Kho Ping Hoo and
others.
In this connection, it should be noted that the majority of the overseas
Chinese engaged in original writing and translation in Malaya and Indo-
nesia are South Fujian people, most of them living in Java. This is closely
connected with their long habitation of that island, their generally large
numbers, and the higher percentage oiperanakan among them than the
other overseas Chinese, especially because many of them have inter-
married with the natives and lived abroad for generations, so that they
have made themselves truly familiar with the Malay and Indonesian
language. In their Malay writings and translations, words from the South
Fujian dialects are often mixed with the Malay (especially words de-
noting specifically Chinese concepts, official titles, the eighteen types of
arms, etc).
Let us take the famous overseas Chinese writer Lie Kim Hok (1853-
1912) as an example. A native of Fujian Province, he has produced many
literary works, as well as articles on Malay as spoken by overseas
Chinese, and was honoured as the father of the Chinese-Malay lan-
guage. Claudine Salmon's investigation has proved Lie Kim Hok to have
been a peranakan bom in Bogor, West Java. At the age of thirteen, he
'spent some time in a Chinese school, where he gained some basic
knowledge of Hokkien [usually meaning one of the South Fujian
dialects] with Totok Chinese teachers' (Salmon 1981:228).
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, when referring to Lie Kim Hok, stated that
Chinese Loanwords in Malay-Indonesian Languages 459
cording to an old Chinese custom, the fifth day of the fifth month of the
lunar calendar is celebrated with the eating of a special food (a kind of
dumpling) and with 'Dragon-Boat' races (Duan-Wu festival). This
word petsun has been incorporated in the Indonesian and Malay
vocabularies as pecun with the meaning 'Duan-Wu or Duan-Yang
festival'. In the Kamus Umum, the relevant definition is 'hari raya
Tionghoa, yang dirayakan dengan bersampan-sampan di kali dsb.',
'hari raya Tionghoa' actually denoting the Duan-Wu festival. In the
Malay dictionary Kamus Dewan the word pecun is defined as 'hari yang
dirayakan oleh orang China dengan bersampan-sampan di sungai dll.'.
The relevant definitions in Kamus Istilah Baru Bahasa Malaysia are (1)
'rowing-boats', and (2) 'Duan-Wu festival'. The process of the exten-
sion of the original meaning of the South Fujian word petsun is quite
obvious, therefore.
Similarly, the South Fujian dialect word samsit} ('three offerings')
denotes the sacrifices offered to either the ancestors or the gods in olden
times. These are distinguished into the three major and the three minor
offerings. In the former, cattle, sheep and pigs are offered, and in the
latter hens, ducks and fish. When this became the loanword samseng in
Indonesian and Malay, its meaning was extended to 'melawat (orang
kematian)' (see Kamus Umum, Kamus Dewan and Kamus Istilah Baru
Bahasa Malaysia). Quite possibly, it is due to the fact that some of the
overseas Chinese integrated the three offerings into their sacrifices to
deceased relatives that other overseas Chinese, as well as local Indone-
sians and Malays, extended the meaning of the original word samsiv,.
The loanword samseng in Indonesian and Malay had its meaning further
changed to 'condolences to the bereaved'.
(d) Changes in Word Connotation
After becoming Indonesian or Malay loanwords, some of the South
Fujian dialect words acquired certain additional meanings, either in an
appreciatory or in a derogatory sense, though more often the latter. For
example, the South Fujian dialect word tsabj, meaning 'woman', not in
any derogatory sense, when accepted into Indonesian and Malay as the
loanword cabo, came to mean 'courtesan' or 'prostitute', the Kamus
Umum and Kamus Dewan defining it as 'jalang', 'sundal'. Further, these
two dictionaries add as a footnote that the word cabo is derived from the
Jakarta dialect. In Kamus Dialek Jakarta, cabo is also defined as 'perem-
puan pelacur' (prostitute). Only in the Kamus Istilah Baru Bahasa
Malaysia, compiled by a number of Chinese-descended writers, is cabo
defined as 'woman', without any derogatory connotation.
Again, the well-known South Fujian dialect loanword kongkalikong,
when used as a verb, berkongkalikong, means 'to plot, conspire' (see
Kamus Umum, Kamus Dewan and Kamus Dialek Jakarta). But in South
Fujian dialects the word k?ka?dikjt} means 'I teil you'. Hence the
process of change from 'I teil you' (whispering) to 'plotting', 'con-
464 Kong Yuan Zhi
Category No. %
ABBREVIATIONS USED
JMBRAS Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, London - Kuala
Lumpur - Singapore.
JSBRAS Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Singapore - London.
KITLV Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden.
LIPI Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, Jakarta.
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Chinese Loanwords in Malay-Indonesian Languages 467