[An-lang] etymology of Malayic "kasi" ('give')

[Waruno Mahdi]

Sincerest thanks for all the friendly responses. 
And in particular to David for his more precise 
info on the situation in Jakartan.

Meanwhile, upon rereading my yesterday's input I 
notice I had overlooked one thing: sub (2) I only 
mentioned appearance of finl _h_ in vernculars, 
but forgot to mention that there had also been 
loss of final _h_, this being what happened with 
_kasih_, to result in _kasi_.

The (supplement) dictionary P.P. Roorda van 
Eysinga, Nederduitsch en Maleisch woordenboek, 
Batavia: Landsdrukkery (1839), has: _kâseh, 
kâsih, (kassi)_ as entry head (the third 
alternative in parentheses), the glosses included 
_toegenegenheid_ "affection[ateness]" and _geven_ 
"to give".

The exact dialectal circumstances are still somewhat unclear to me.
I have been working with Dutch-edited Malay 
publications of the 19th century, and was quite 
fascinated by the irregularity, with which final 
_h_ (also initial or internal _h_) was either 
dropped or not.

The following is a quottion from the newspaper 
Bintang Timor, Surabaia, of January 4, 1870, p. 
1, col. 2:

"Djoega tanaman dari 100 baoe teboe mangasi asil 
dalem doea tahoen jang soedah 30  pikoel dalem 
satoe baoe"

Modern spelling:
"Juga tanaman dari 100 bau tebu mengasi[h] 
[h]asil dalam dua tahun yang sudah 30 pikul dalam 
satu bau"

i.e.:
"So too the planting of 100 bau-s with sugar-cane 
gave in two years the result of 30 pikools per 
one bau"  (1 bau = circa 0.7 hectares).

As you see, final _h_ was dropped from _mengasih_ 
(meN- + kasih) but not from _sudah_. (in other 
texts, it was also frequently dropped from 
_sudah_).

That's all, and thanks again,

Aloha, Waruno
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