Linguistic Contact in East Timor

[Waruno Mahdi]

The situation in Malay is similar to that described by Paz Naylor
for Tgalog/Cebuano/Hiligaynon.
The language did not originally have gender-specific terms, other
than for 'man', 'woman', 'mother', 'father', 'aunt', 'uncle',
'elder brother', perhaps also 'elder sister'.

Gender specificification in reference to animals was expressed
by immediate postposition of _jantan_ 'male' / _betina_ 'female'
behind the animal gender-neutral name. It is already widespread
in earliest (16th century) manuscipts, and does not appear to
reflect late external influence.

In reference to humans, the corresponding attributes were and
still are _lelaki_ 'male' / _perempuan_ 'female', these being
otherwise the words for 'man' and 'woman' respectively.
This usage is likewise already attested in early manuscripts,
but not as frequently as the means for animals. And then, the
most frequent head-word before the attribute was _anak_ 'child',
resulting in expressions for 'boy/son' and 'girl/daughter'.
Another head-word already involved in earliest sources was _raja_
'king', a loanword from Sanskrit. For example, the Sejarah Melayu
(Malay Annals) has _raja perempuan_ 'female king, reigning queen'
(i.e. not simply 'king's wife').

I therefore suspect, that this means of gender-differentiation may
have been relatively recent, after acquaintance with Sanskrit.
It seems significant, that the term for 'madam, milady' in earliest
manucripts was _tuan putri_ ('master, sir, milord' + Sanskrit
loanword for 'daughter'). Malay borrowing from Sanskrit already
began in the first millennium AD, and that included gender specific
nouns, particularly _putra_ 'son' and _putri_ 'daughter'. But
usage was diferent for the two: whereas the former was fully
incorporated into the language, even giving rise to various
derivations (e.g. _berputrakan_ 'to have as son'), the latter
is almost exclusively used either in the exression _tuan putri_,
or as part of proper names (for women of nobility). In a quick
search (using Ian Proudfoot's MCP), I only came across a single
deviant example in Hikayat Bayan Budiman, in which _putri_ is
used in the singular as well as in the plural in the meaning
'princess'.


The problem remains somewhat uncertain, because I cannot tell how
ancient the original Malay gender-specific honorific articles _hang_
(before a man's name) and _dang_ (before a woman's name) are. They
already appear in old folkore, suggesting a rather early origin.

Otherwise, contact with Sanksrit, subsequently with Arabic and Persian,
later with Portuguese and Dutch, does not seem to have had noticeable
influence on gender specification in Malay. The principal exception
was perhaps the word _nyonya_ 'Missus' (from Creole Portuguese) as
female counterpart to _tuan_ 'Mr.'.

This only changed in the 1930-a, when a new means appeared in Indonesian
Malay. The Malay word _saudara_ 'sibling' had come to be used as term of
address between indigenous Indonesians (somewhat like the word _citoyen_
in the French Revolution). Political gender-correctness then demanded a
term for female compatriots (_citoyenne_), so in analogy to the
Sanskritisms _putra_ 'son, prince' / _putri_ 'daughter, princess' (modern
meanings), one artificially formed the term _saudari_ as female counterpart
to _saudara_. Subsequently (mainly after 1945 this became a productive
means, e.g. _mahasiswa_/_mahasiswi_ for male/female student.

In modern Indonesian, gender specification is quite common and involves
a number of borrowed features, also a.o. from Javanese.
Sorry this got so long.

Aloha,
Waruno



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