A list of Brunei-Malay words
H. S. Haynes published “A List of Brunei-Malay Words” in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 34, 1900, pp. 39–48), presenting a lexicon of approximately 200 Brunei-Malay terms with English glosses. The list, collected in the field, documents a distinct Malay variety spoken in the Brunei region and serves as one of the earliest systematic lexical records of that variety in the colonial-era literature.
Summary
The list is organised alphabetically and spans a wide range of semantic domains: maritime and fishing vocabulary (e.g., Dapong “a boat with outriggers,” Lambu “the Illanun boat,” Salambo “a fishing net”), agricultural terms (Katawi “a place for paddy,” Sebur “raised divisions in the paddy fields,” Napu “sago flour”), domestic life and material culture (Gubong “a dug-out canoe,” Langong “a cooking pot,” Pungaut “a rice spoon”), the natural world (Bengkatang “the Proboscis Monkey,” Lekup “the small hornbill,” Rumbia “the sago palm”), and the body and health (Autik “cataract of the eye,” Dugal “spleen, nausea,” Jahat Nawa “sick, unwell”).
Several entries reveal contact and borrowing: Chandas (“Chinese chop sticks”) points to Chinese influence, Baston (“a walking-stick”) likely reflects an English or Portuguese loan, and Brian (“money, or goods paid for a wife”) may derive from a Malay root but is glossed in a way that highlights a culturally specific institution. The list also preserves terms for supernatural and spiritual concepts — Kalindo (“a jungle spirit”), Sampar (“an evil spirit”), Gusey (“a sacred jar”) — offering a window into the cosmological vocabulary of Brunei-Malay speakers at the turn of the century.
As a document, the list is notable for its brevity and its lack of phonological or grammatical commentary. It functions as a practical reference rather than a linguistic analysis, and its spelling conventions (e.g., Chabok, Chuet, Peasow) reflect the romanisation practices of the period rather than any standardised orthography.
Key Findings
- The lexicon documents approximately 200 terms covering maritime, agricultural, domestic, zoological, botanical, and spiritual domains, confirming the breadth of Brunei-Malay as a fully functional variety distinct from standard Malay (pp. 39–48).
- Maritime and fishing vocabulary is particularly dense, with terms for specific boat types (Dapong, Lambu), nets (Salambo, Selereng, Seut), and fishing implements (Sangup “a fish spear,” Pungarusan “a charm attached to a fishing net”), reflecting the centrality of the sea to Brunei society (pp. 40–46).
- Several entries record culturally specific institutions and practices, including Brian (bride-price), Pampangan (“stocks, place of punishment”), Porok (“earth eaten by the natives”), and Tunduk (“the scalp lock”), providing ethnographic data alongside lexical information (pp. 41, 45, 48).
- The list preserves terms for the supernatural — Kalindo (jungle spirit), Sampar (evil spirit), Gusey (sacred jar) — documenting a layer of vocabulary absent from standard Malay reference works of the period (pp. 42, 43, 46).
- Borrowings and contact terms are identifiable, including Chandas (Chinese chopsticks), Baston (walking-stick), and Beli (a stick of tobacco), evidencing multilingual contact in the Brunei region (pp. 40–41).
- The spelling system is non-standardised and reflects early 20th-century colonial romanisation, with inconsistent treatment of vowels and consonants (e.g., Chabok, Peasow, Tislear), limiting its utility for modern phonological reconstruction (pp. 39–48).
Conclusion
Haynes’s list is a modest but valuable early record of Brunei-Malay vocabulary, capturing a cross-section of the language’s lexicon at a moment when the variety was still largely undocumented in print. Its primary significance lies in preserving terms — particularly those relating to maritime life, material culture, and the supernatural — that might otherwise have been lost, and in providing a baseline against which later descriptions of Brunei-Malay can be compared.
Context
- The publication appeared in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the principal scholarly outlet for colonial-era linguistic and ethnographic work in the Straits Settlements and surrounding territories.
- The list was “collected” by Haynes, a term that in this period typically denotes fieldwork with native informants, though no details of the collection process, informant identity, or dialectal location within Brunei are provided in the text.