FW: Linguistic Contact in East Timor

[Elizabeth Pearce]

And bro is used as a term of address among whites as well as among Maori in New Zealand. (And I imagine in Australia also).
Liz Pearce


------ Forwarded Message
From: Waruno Mahdi <mahdi at fhi-berlin.mpg.de>
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:48:16 +1300
To: Austronesian languages <an-lang at anu.edu.au>
Conversation: [An-lang] Linguistic Contact in East Timor
Subject: Re: [An-lang] Linguistic Contact in East Timor

Thanks David. Yes, this funny use of _mister_ is interesting indeed,
though I haven't heard it yet among Indonesians abroad. The funny
thing about it is, that there had been a Javanese herbal-medicine
(_jamu_) brand since the early 20th century, known as _jamu cap
Nyonya-Meneer_ (lit. 'missus-&-mister brand herbal-medicine').
On the package there was a picture of a Dutch couple, the word
_meneer_ being Dutch (also spelled _mijnheer_) for 'mister'. The
loanword in colloquial Indonesian Malay, _menir_, is/was gender
specific (masculine).

Also the earlier Portuguese loan _sinyor_ (attested since 17th cent.)
was gender specific. Both (_sinyor_ and _menir_) were only used with
regard to white persons. I did not mention either of them earlier,
because they are no longer commonly used in the modern language.

But the process of borrowing can sometimes have unexpected, or no
longer apparent loopholes. The word _bro_ (short for _brother_)
began to be used some years ago in Malaysia as gender-specific term
of address to a (male) friend. I noticed recently that it has also
started to be used by some young Indonesians.

In view of the fact, that _bro_ in (American) English has a quite
pronounced derogatory meaning (something like "white-trash male"),
it seems very unlikely that the Malay word was a direct borrowing
from English. I tentatively suspect, therefore, that the original
precursor was _brother_ as term of address amongst Afro-Americans,
and that Malay _bro_ was shortened from _brother_ in Malay itself,
independently of the shortening to _bro_ in English. Does that
sound likely?

I forgot to mention in my former input that Malay borrowed a number
of adjectives from Arabic, some with masculine ending (e.g. _hakiki_
'essential'), some with feminine (_alamiah_ 'natural'), but the
loanwords were/are free of any gender connotation in Malay.

Aloha,
Waruno


>  Just a footnote to Waruno's excellent summary ...
>
>  Any white person who has spent any time in Indonesia will be more
>than familiar with the recent Indonesian loan from English "mister",
>whose denotation is, simply 'white person', and is unmarked not just
>for number but also for gender ...
>
>  David

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