Sanskrit: At the Roots of the Indo-Malay Language

Since I lived two years in Malaysia, and I attended the Malay language classes, holding some specific lessons on the contamination of different languages, I have returned to be passionate about an ancient love of university days: linguistics, in fact.

It should also be added that in recent years I have intensified the study and knowledge of Hinduism, thanks to the attendance of the Hindu community of Bengal in Rome.

 

So I got the crazy idea of deepening the study of Sanskrit, at least at the etymological level, because it's a fact that most of the words of the Indo-Malay languages, as well as culture, art, and partly religion of these countries are imbued with Indian and Hindu influences.

I still remember the astonishment of the young students of the BM – Malay language – courses in the Humanities faculty, when I made them a short list of Malay words which were, in fact, Sanskrit words.

Sanskrit, after all, is the primary and oldest language spoken throughout Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe: we all come from there.

Then over the millennia it generated Pali, Persian, Greek and Latin, Javanese, among the ancient languages; while in modern languages it has influenced Tamil, Punjabi, Arabic, Hebrew, Tagalog, Thai, English, French, Russian and the Indo-Malay languages.

Obviously, over the centuries, languages are transformed, agglomerating influences from other languages. The Malay language, for example, derives from ancient Javanese, which was a language related to Sanskrit.

 

The cradle of all these linguistic influences are the two famous epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. But, to most influence the Malay literary tradition was the “Hikayat Seri Rama”.

The Ramayana is said to have come to Malaysia thanks to the Javanese shadow theater tradition, the Wayang Kulit.

This ancient art, however, underwent changes due to the strong Islamic culture in Malaysia, which changed some elements, especially hiding the Hindu substratum. The characters of the Wayang Kulit theater, the Kelantan Dalangs, all became Muslim, in accordance with the dominant religion.

In Malaysia the Mahabharata became the “Hikayat Perang Pandawa Jaya” (“The Tale of the war of the victorious Pandawa”), composed between the late 14th and early 16th centuries, and “Hikayat Maharaja Boma”.

 

I am deeply fascinated by how languages influence and change over time.

The etymologies remain a magical place, an enchanted garden in which to stroll to learn more about our languages.

Obviously there are words that are evidently of Sanskrit origin which it is impossible to doubt, such as Raja, the King in many Southeast Asian languages.

Others remain more surprising.

 

Babel Tower

I have collected here a series of words from Malay, and very similar to Indonesian, which come from or are entirely Sanskrit words.

It is a purely subjective list, the ones that impressed me the most and that surprised me. For some of them the analysis of the original meaning is also very interesting.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy playing and learning words like a child.

Therefore I offer them to you, to my many Malaysian and Indonesian friends, who may already know them, or who did not know their origin, sharing with you the knowledge, amazement and love for the language.

 

To return to the disbelief of the Malay language students at the university, I believe that among the most interesting words are those relating to religion, in this case Islam.

The same word Agama (religion) is a Sanskrit word which means “from the Vedas”, “inspired by religious texts”.

Surga (Heaven) is Svarga, and Neraka (Hell) is Narakah, obviously not in the Christian-Islamic sense but of the heavens and the infernal places of the Hindu tradition.

Dosa (Sin) is Dova, and Puasa (Fasting) is Upavasa.

Cinta (Love) is also totally of Sanskrit origin, with Cinta (Sinta in Tagalog) deriving from Cinta (“care”), while more fascinating is Asmara, one of the most poetic terms for love—the famous song “Asmara Bergelora” (romantic or turbulent love), a classic by Uji Rashid & Hail Amir—well, in Sanskrit Asmara is Smara, but not simple love but “lust”. This is one of those cases in which words are domesticated by culture and religion to become part of the common lexicon.

 

While on the word Suami, husband, I made a specific digression during that lesson, because it was surprising for me to know its origin.

I remember hearing this word over and over in a Hindu raga on a CD I bought in Little India, in Penang; therefore, intrigued by why the word “husband” was repeated continuously in a raga, I asked an Indian Hindu friend of mine and she explained that in reality it was Swami, which in Sanskrit means God, or high priest.

Curious—and very clever, I would say—that in the Indo-Malay language this term means today “husband”: I leave all personal considerations to you, I have already drawn my conclusions.

And anyway, while we're at it, Isteri is also Stri, wife, Keluarga the family is Kula-varga, the “family residence”, and Wanita is Vanita, the woman.

 

You can make very clever use of the etymologies, Pandai is said to be clever, which comes from Pandita – “learned”.

Some terms, as I said at the beginning, are easy to understand such as Puji (praising, flattering) which is a direct derivative of Puja, religious prayer and praise, worship; or Sastera, Sastra, the literature deriving from Sastran, “the readings” and àstra, the “handbook”.

Baca, reading, is Vaca, “words with voice”, and Kata, word, is Katha, “story”, which in Bengali is Kotha; Bicara is Vicàra, the “discussion”, and Budaya (culture) is Bahu-deya, “the munificence, the quality or the action of being extremely generous”, a very fascinating etymology relating to “culture”.

 

Some words now that I particularly love: my beloved Cahaya, the light, which in Sanskrit is Cha-ya, the Shadow (with much love from the Japanese Zen philosophers), Jiwa, the soul that is such and like Jiva, “the personal soul.”

Bahagia, happiness, which comes from Bhagya, “of good fortune”.

Warna is Varna, color, Suka (pleasure) is Sukha, happiness, Sempurna is Sampurnatà, “Perfection”. And Saya (me) is Swayam, “myself”.

Among the last words of this short trip, one of the most loved cannot be missing, linked to the National Day of these two countries: Merdeka! “Freedom”, which derives from Maharddhika: “prosperity”.

 

A separate voice deserves a word that has instead lost a lot over the centuries, and which instead was one of the strongest in the Hindu tradition.

Rasa, the taste or even feeling, the “feeling strange” (rasa aneh), for example.

On this term there are entire chapters of books on the origins of Sanskrit and the Hindu tradition.

Here I quote two books that I recently bought and am studying, a very complex and difficult one by René Daumal on Sanskrit.

The scholar explains that, in relation to the distinction and classification of the arts in ancient India, Rasa is the essence of poetry (including theater).

“Taste is the name of the immediate perception, from the inside, of a particular moment or state of existence, caused by the entry into action of artistic means of expression. It's neither an object nor a feeling nor a concept; it is an immediate evidence, a savoring of life itself.”

 

The other book is by the scholar Giovanni Torcinovich, an Indologist at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, on Art in India and its symbolism. The book refers to Bharata's text “Natyasastra” on dramaturgy, a cornerstone of classical Indian arts.

Here the “theory of rasa” is exposed, on which the whole Indian vision of art in general is based, for which art is the semantic capacity to express, precisely through the senses. The arts arouse emotions in humans through the senses.

There are nine rasa (navarasa), and each of them is also associated with a color, but we will see this in a future article:

    love, shringara
    cheerfulness, hasya
    compassion, karuna
    anger, raudra
    heroism or courage, vira
    terror, bhayanaka
    hatred, bibhatsya
    the wonder, adbhuta
    peace, shanta

 

This is just to say how complex the study of this word is and how much it has lost over the centuries.

Not the simple feeling or taste of flavors, but a mystical experience of deep communion with the world through the arts.

I forgot, Bahasa, the language, is also a Sanskrit word: Bhasa.

I believe it is enough and I hope you may have enjoyed walking in the Ancient Garden of Words.

We know the world through the language we learn as children, for us there is no other way to grow than to “name things”. This is why it is important to pay due tribute to the mother of many of our languages.

I will continue to study it and maybe I will come back later to write about it.

 

A thought goes out to all the young students I have met, and I hope that you will never stop in front of the first closed door but will open one after the other.

Finally, I apologize for the incorrect spelling of the Sanskrit terms, which have a complex accent and not present in the keyboard.

However I am attaching an article from which I took these words so you can have fun finding others: Malay Words of Sanskrit Origin 

READ ALSO:

•  Odoardo Beccari: The First Italian in Malaysia 
• Let’s Start Writing! 

René Daumal: “Launched by thought” (Adelphi, 2019)
“India - Art beyond forms” by Giovanni Torcinovich (VAIS – Il Cerchio, 2013)

Italian version