The linguistic evidences from Sejarah Melayu showing the greater influence of Tamil in Malay language
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Abstract
The number and the influence of Sanskrit and Tamil borrow-words in Malay languages could not be undermined. It is not known clearly when and how these words were brought in. Studies by the local and western scholars have claimed that the contact between these loan terms started since the era of pre-Christianity and it was extended till 16th century, in different pace and forms. This resulted-in the loanwords were adopted within the local's language system as an integral part of the language. Most of these scholarly works have focused on verifying the contributions of Sanskrit within Bahasa Indonesia in great extent, but little interest have been shown to study the influence of Tamil in Malay spoken in Malaysia. The contributions of Tamil, in fact, is equally parallel within the Malay spoken in Malaysia, if a serious stocktaking is done properly. This study, for this reason, aimed at offering such linguistic evidences from a historical manual, Sejarah Melayu, one of the oldest Malay Manual, to verify the claim. The manual is studied before extracting the Sanskrit and Tamil loan terms, which were compared for their contributions. The outcome of the study shows that the influence of Tamil borrow-words in the old Malay language that show little differences compared to that used in the present-day Malay. The outcome of the study contends the widely accepted stance on Sanskrit, but concedes that Tamil borrow-words have expounded contributions. © 2020 by Advance Scientific Research.
Keywords
Sanskrit Borrow-words, Tami Borrow-words, Borrow-words in Malay, Sejarah Melayu, India-Malay Early Contact
Divisions
arts
Publication Title
Journal of Critical Reviews
Volume
7
Issue
11
Publisher
Innovare Academics Sciences Pvt. Ltd