"duduk" and "tinggal" in Malay and Bahasa Indonesia

[Waruno Mahdi]

> I've been trying to teach myself Malay.
> I've come across  a number of expressions in which "duduk" is used in the
> sense of "living" in a place and at other times I've seen 'tinggal".
> When I looked up the meanings, I got "duduk" meaning "live,  sit,  stay"
> and "tinggal" meaning "live,  reside,  remain".
> My question:  are these two usages really interchangeable when used in the
> sense of living in a place,  or does "tinggal" have a more permanent

If you are learning Malay yourself, and will be having such questions
more or less regularly, this would perhaps not be the appropriate mailing
list. I could suggest Bahasa List (use online subscribing facility at
http://listserv.dartmouth.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=bahasa&A=1 , or
contact one of the list owners Uli Kozok <uli.kozok at auckland.ac.nz> ,
Tim Behrend <t.behrend at auckland.ac.nz> ) in case there are problems.

As for your present question, the basic (literal) meanings of the two
words are different: _duduk_ "sit", _tinggal_ "remain", and of these
two, it is usually the latter which is also used to simply say "live"
in the sense of "reside", e.g.
      _dia tinggal di rumah itu_ "he/she lives in that house"
      [he/she remain at house that]
but: _dia tinggal seorang_ [he/she remain one-person] is ambiguous
 for "he/she remains by him/herself, alone" and  "he/she lives alone"
(i.e. you need some residence-implying context to disambiguate to "live")

This is true, I believe, for both Malaysian and Indonesian standard Malays,
though I am less informed about the former.

What follows below refers to Indonesian Malay alone, I am not so well
informed on the situation in Malaysian standard Malay.

Beside _tinggal_, there is another basic word that is used for "live",
 _diam_ (literally "be quiet, stay"):
      _dia [ber]diam di rumah itu_ "he/she lives/stays in that house",
where _ber_ is optional.

On the other hand, _duduk_ is practically not used directly in the
meaning of "live". Compare:
      _dia duduk di rumah itu_ "he/she sits in that house" (i.e. is
seated on a chair or mat, etc. inside that house; this is not even a
figurative expression for "he/she has residence in that house").
The closest, that "duduk" comes to expressing "residence", is when it
is used (typically in derived forms) to express "seat (e.g. of government,
of the mayor, of some office)", or "situation (e.g. of a city [where it
lies], of a case). But in some dialects of Malay, also Malaysian standard,
this may perhaps be different, see the meaning of _penduduk_ (in
Indonesian) below.

Note the meaning of some derivations:

diam:    _kediaman_ "place of residence"
         _pendiam_ "quiet person, not-talkative person"
         _terdiam_ "be silenced"

tinggal: _ketinggalan_ "get left behind" /
                       / "find oneself in the mishap of having accidentally,
                          unintentionally left [something] behind"
         _peninggalan_ "remains"
         _tertinggal_ "get left behind"

duduk:   _kedudukan_ "position (place, rank, circumstance)" /
                     / "get seated upon"
         _penduduk_ "inhabitant"
         _pendudukan_ "occupation (of a place/territory)"
         _terduduk_ "fall/land on one's buttocks or into a seated position"

Finally, there is the root-morph _huni_ that forms the verb _menghuni_
"to live in/occupy (quarters, residence, room, etc.)", and the noun
_penghuni_ "occupant (of a house, appartment/flat, room in hotel, etc.)".

In any case, none of the above apply when you want to say "live" in the
sense of "be alive, not dead" (that would be _hidup_).

Hope that was some help. But be sure to also consult someone who knows
Malaysian standard Malay.

Regards,   Waruno