Notes on the formation of words in Malay and cognate languages
H.L.E. Luering, a German philologist based in Strassburg, published this comparative study in 1903, arguing that Malay word formation preserves vestigial grammatical structures—reduplicative specialization, ancient vocative forms, archaic adjectival prefixes, and obsolete verbal conjugations—that can only be properly understood through systematic comparison with cognate Malayan languages, particularly Batak, Tagalog, and Malagasy.
Summary
Luering’s central thesis is that Malay, though highly simplified and “disintegrated” compared to its sister languages, retains fossilized morphological patterns that reveal the grammar of a proto-Malayan stage. He structures his argument around four categories of word formation, each demonstrated through parallel examples across the family. His most provocative claim concerns reduplication: he explicitly opposes the standard grammatical view that reduplication marks the plural, arguing instead that it expresses specialization and differentiation of meaning. His evidence is the court novel phrase segala raja-raja dan mentri, hulubalang serta biduanda sekalian, where only raja is reduplicated while the other plural nouns remain singular, because raja encompasses a wide range of ranks requiring differentiation (pp. 21–22). He further demonstrates that reduplication produces “nilarity not identity”—langit-langit (baldachin, not sky), buat-buat (to pretend, not to do), ayam-ayam (waterfowl, not hen)—a pattern confirmed across Malagasy, Batak, and Tagalog (pp. 23–25).
The second and third sections identify ancient vocative forms (e.g., anang from anak, bapang from bapa) and adjectival forms with the ma- prefix (e.g., malang beside alang, masam beside asam) as relics of a more inflectional proto-language. Luering shows that Batak maintains these vocatives in full everyday use (amang, indng, omping), while Tagalog has generalized the vocative ending -ng across all nouns and adjectives, and Malagasy has lost them entirely (pp. 26–28). For the adjectival ma- prefix, he provides extensive parallel lists from Batak, Malagasy, Tagalog, and Dusun, and speculates that the name Malayu itself may derive from Tagalog malayo (“far, distant, stranger”) (pp. 28–31).
The final and most extensive section addresses ancient verbal conjugations. Luering identifies the -um- infix (as in gemetar, gemilang, temurun) as a weakened remnant of what Batak grammar calls the Fourth Conjugation and Tagalog the First, noting that Malay dialects preserve the original vowel (gumilang, gumelatok) where standard Malay has weakened it to e (pp. 31–33). He then identifies a second obsolete conjugation marked by the -al- infix combined with the me-/men-/meng- prefix (as in telekan, selaput, gelisah), corresponding to Batak’s Tenth Conjugation, for which he finds no parallel in Malagasy or Tagalog (pp. 33–36). He closes by noting that the ubiquitous me-/men-/meng- prefix, which has superseded all other verbal formations in modern Malay, is found in every Malayan language examined (pp. 36–37).
Key Findings
- Reduplication in Malay does not express the plural but rather specialization and differentiation of meaning; raja-raja means “various classes of Rajas” rather than “kings,” and the Arabic-Malay parallel texts in classical works confirm that segala (not reduplication) is the true plural marker (pp. 21–23).
- The -um- infix conjugation (e.g., gemetar, gemilang, temurun) is a weakened form of a conjugation fully preserved in Batak and Tagalog, with the original vowel u still visible in Malay dialectal forms such as gumilang and gumelatok (pp. 31–33).
- The -al- infix conjugation (e.g., telekan, selaput, gelisah, kelupas) corresponds to Batak’s Tenth Conjugation and appears to be uniquely preserved in Malay among the languages examined, with no parallel found in Malagasy or Tagalog (pp. 33–36).
- The ma- prefix in words like malang, masing, masam, and masin represents an ancient adjectival formation still productive in Batak, Tagalog, Malagasy, and Dusun, and Luering proposes that the ethnonym Malayu may derive from Tagalog malayo (“stranger, distant”) (pp. 28–31).
- Ancient vocative forms in Malay (anang, bapang, indong, abang, inang) are preserved in full everyday use in Batak (amang, indng, omping, hahang), while Tagalog has generalized the vocative suffix -ng to all nouns and adjectives (pp. 26–28).
- The me-/men-/meng-/mem-/meny- prefix, which has become the dominant verbal formation in modern Malay, is attested in all Malayan languages examined and represents the one conjugation that has survived across the entire family (pp. 36–37).
Conclusion
Luering concludes that the comparative method, applied to the full range of Malayan languages, can reconstruct grammatical structures that have been lost or obscured in Malay alone. His definitive takeaway is that Malay’s apparent morphological simplicity is misleading: beneath its surface lie layers of archaic conjugational and derivational patterns that, once identified through cognate comparison, reveal a proto-Malayan grammar of considerable complexity, including multiple verbal conjugations, a productive adjectival prefix, and a functional vocative case.
Context
- The article was published in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, reflecting the Society’s early twentieth-century interest in the philology of the Malay Archipelago and its linguistic connections to Madagascar and the Philippines.
- Luering’s work draws on Batak grammatical descriptions and Tagalog comparative data that were then at the frontier of Malayan linguistic scholarship, and his proposal regarding the etymology of Malayu from malayo remains a notable (if unproven) hypothesis in the field.