Hindustani, Tamil, Sanskrit and other loan words in Malay
A. W. Hamilton’s 1919 article in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society presents a compiled list of Malay vocabulary items whose etymologies had not yet been recorded in R. J. Wilkinson’s Malay-English Dictionary, arguing that the cumulative weight of Hindustani, Tamil, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other loanwords raises a fundamental question about the channels through which these words entered the Malay lexicon.
Summary
Hamilton’s paper is fundamentally a lexical reference work rather than a narrative historical study. Its central intellectual contribution is a methodological challenge: if practically all Malay words of Persian origin, and a very large number of those of Sanskrit and Arabic origin, are also found in Hindustani, then it becomes “an open question” whether these words were incorporated into Malay through the medium of Hindustani rather than from their direct sources (p. 29). This reframing of the borrowing question—shifting attention from the ultimate source language to the immediate vector of transmission—was a significant historiographical intervention in Malay lexicography at the time.
The list itself is organized alphabetically and spans a wide range of semantic fields: domestic objects (almari, baldi, pinggan), food and drink (beriani, korma, kanji, suji), administrative and military terminology (amil, serang, paltu, stan), religious and cultural terms (pardah, sahur, siyasat, tapa), and nautical vocabulary (gawai, peruwan, perum, teringket). Each entry pairs the Malay form with its etymological source, annotated with abbreviations for Sanskrit (Skt.), Persian (P.), Hindustani (H.), and Arabic (Ar.). Hamilton explicitly acknowledges that several derivations had been independently arrived at and previously published by Van der Tuuk and van der Wall, and that others appeared in Swettenham’s English and Malay Vocabulary without source attribution (p. 38, Note I).
The paper situates itself within a collaborative scholarly ecosystem, noting Hamilton’s indebtedness to R. O. Winstedt for reviewing the list and identifying words whose derivations had already been noted by Dutch authorities (p. 29). Hamilton also contextualizes the Tamil and other non-Hindustani entries by observing that they are current in Penang, which “has a large admixture of Indian blood in its native Malay population” and has maintained close connections with Southern India since its foundation (p. 29).
Key Findings
- The paper documents approximately 150 Malay lexical items with etymological attributions, the majority traced to Hindustani, with significant numbers from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Tamil, Portuguese, and English (pp. 29–38).
- Several entries reveal Portuguese as an intermediary source for words that appear superficially Indian: almari (from Portuguese almario), amah (from Portuguese ama), aya (from Portuguese aia), kamra (from Portuguese), nanas (from Portuguese anânâs), tembakau (from Portuguese tabaco), tangki (from Portuguese tanque), and teringket (from Portuguese triquete) (pp. 29, 33, 35, 38).
- English-origin borrowings include galis (from gallows), jalibot (from jailboat), kartus (from car-touch), hansil (from hawser), turpal (from tarpaulin), and kanjihaus (a compound of Hindustani kanji and English house) (pp. 32–33, 38).
- The entry for kanjihaus illustrates a hybrid formation: “cells” in a regiment, derived from kanji (the prisoners’ diet of boiled rice water) combined with the English word house (p. 33).
- Hamilton notes that chakla (Lorong Chakla in Penang, now Argyll Road) derives from Hindustani chaklâ meaning “a brothel,” preserving a toponymic memory of the area’s former character (p. 31).
- The paper explicitly cross-references prior scholarship: derivations for male, mula, nira, lepa, kodî, guha, ganda, tala, serigala, seteru, rasa, perchaya, pinggan, sembosa, naracha, nidêra, muka, kacha, gaharu, jati, and champa had been previously given by Van der Tuuk and van der Wall, while istri, lak, loba, jala, khesai, kawaid, teringket, gawai, and perum appeared in Swettenham’s vocabulary (p. 38, Note I).
Conclusion
Hamilton’s definitive takeaway is not a settled etymological verdict but a methodological provocation: the sheer volume of Malay words that are simultaneously attested in Hindustani makes it impossible to assume direct borrowing from Sanskrit, Arabic, or Persian without considering Hindustani as the probable intermediary. The paper thus shifts the analytical burden from identifying source languages to tracing transmission pathways, a question that remains central to the study of Malay lexical history.
Context
- Hamilton was writing as a colonial-era scholar contributing to the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, a body whose lexicographical projects served both academic and administrative purposes in the Straits Settlements.
- The paper draws on the standard reference works of the period—Wilkinson’s Malay-English Dictionary, Winstedt’s prior publications in the same journal, and the Dutch scholarship of Van der Tuuk and van der Wall—positioning itself as a gap-filling supplement to existing Malay etymological literature.