Sanskrit roots in Indonesian/Malaysian (was query: etymology of Malay sama)

Doug Cooper doug at th.net
Wed Dec 18 09:29:08 UTC 2002


If this is helpful, I've put up a site at http://crcl.th.net/indic/indo.htm
It's dedicated to the extensive wordlist found in:

 Casparis, J.G. de , 1997,  _Sanskrit loan-words in Indonesian:
   an annotated check-list of words from Sanskrit in Indonesian
   and Traditional Malay_

It includes additional items and comments kindly provided by:
  Mahdi, Waruno, 2000,  _Review of J.G. de Casparis 1997_

  Comments, bug reports welcome.

  Be well,
  Doug Cooper

At 00:28 18/12/02 +0100, David Gil wrote:
>Can anybody help me with the etymology of Malay / Indonesian "sama"
>('and', 'with', 'same', object marker, etc.)?  I'd appreciate either
>pointers to the literature or your own ideas on the subject.
>
>Adelaar (1992) characterizes it (or, rather, the Betawi cognate) as a
>loan from Sanskrit.  However, I am also familiar with "sama" meaning
>'accompany' in Tagalog, and it's harder to see how that could have come
>from Sanskrit (even via Malay).  But, Zorc (1995) reconstructs PAN *sa-
>'one', *ma 'and, with', which, when put together, sound and mean a lot
>like "sama" in Tagalog and Malay / Indonesian.  Maybe even PAN *mai
>'come' could be part of the same story.
>
>David
>Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
>Webpage:  http://monolith.eva.mpg.de/~gil/



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