[An-lang] Malay KASIH

[Александр Оглоблин]

       The volatile "-h"
      
      Dear colleagues,  
      
      Malay root morpheme patterns traditionally did not tolerate the final /-e/ (e-taling, as well as -e-pepet, "schwa")
or /-ei/, and the final /-o/. Thus in some loan-words these vowels were changed for diphtongs /ai/ and /au/; 

seperai < Dutch  sprei   'bed sheet', 
towkay  < Chin.dial.  thay ke 'employer' (var.  taukeh) 
selai < Dutch  gele   'jam'
tembakau < Port. tabaco  (if not pronounced at the time of borrowing with final /-u/  , as at present)  
panau < Port.  pano 'skin desease' (the same notice), 

or supplied by the additional /-h/: 
 teh, taukeh, tempoh . 

(Not so in Malay dialects in Java:  sore, sate,  toko  etc).  
      
     Meanwhile Javanese around 1700 did not tolerate any longer the final /-a/, so that this /-a/ also received the additional /-h/. e.g.  Amerikah . Such forms as  sekolah could arise from Javanese speakers of Malay. 
      A rather chaotic use of final /-h/ was the consequence. This is attested in Melayu Rendah and Chinese-Malay texts: 

stenga taoen 'setengah tahun ' 
rapih 'rapi', 
celah 'cela' etc. 

The same perhaps occurred with  kasih producing kasi .
       
Thanks for this interesting discussion.
 Best,
 A.Ogloblin 

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