On the roots in the Malay language
J. Pijnappel, a Dutch scholar writing for the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1885, argues that the true roots of the Malay language are not the dissyllabic primitives commonly catalogued in dictionaries but rather simple monosyllabic elements—many of them tone-imitative (onomatopoeic)—which have generated the language’s vast derivational system through systematic vowel and consonant modification. The article is a philological investigation into how sound-imitation, prefixation, and semantic extension produced the lexical stock of Malay, and it closes with a series of hypotheses about the origin and diversification of language stocks.
Summary
Pijnappel opens by contrasting the Malay situation with that of the Indo-Germanic family, where roots are understood to have existed only in a pre-branching period and whose original form remains debated. In Malay, by contrast, roots persist as living, current words. He insists, however, that the dissyllabic “primitives” so often treated as radical words are in fact compounds of two simple particles, and it is to these monosyllabic elements that the philologist must look for the genuine roots. His principal methodological tool is the class of “verbal reproductions of sound,” a category in which Malay is, in his view, exceptionally rich—a wealth he attributes to the acute auditory sensitivity of an aboriginal people long resident in a coastal environment.
The bulk of the article is devoted to an extended analysis of the root tik (equivalent to the English tick), using it as a lens through which to demonstrate the systematic relationship between phonetic form and semantic content. Pijnappel shows how the vowel triad e–a–oe encodes a gradient from sharp and clear to flat and dull, and how the final consonant—k, ng, m, s—modifies the quantity of the tone: k implies a sudden, abrupt ending; ng a nasal prolongation or resonance; m a humming or booming expulsion of air; s a continuing, sibilant or aspirated quality. From this single root he traces a web of derivatives, examining the prefixes ke and le not as mere phonetic fillers but as meaningful morphemes: ke conveys suddenness and abruptness (a sound “proceeding direct from the throat”), while le conveys frequency and continuity (a vibration of the tongue implying repetition). He then follows the semantic extensions from these forms into concrete vocabulary—ketik as the tick of a clock, the jumping leg of a grasshopper, and by analogy the hammer of a rifle; keting as the back of the leg and the Achilles tendon; kentang as the wooden block struck by the night-watchman—demonstrating how a single onomatopoeic seed can branch into an entire lexical field through metaphor and functional analogy.
In his closing remarks Pijnappel distinguishes between involuntary tone-imitative words and a second, “arbitrary” class of tone-words that he believes recall not merely sound but the motions and gestures accompanying an action, linking them to the language of mimicry and gesticulation that must have preceded fully developed speech. He proposes that the interplay of these two classes, combined with the full range of determinative affixes, generated an indefinite number of independent languages, many of which have since disappeared.
Key Findings
- The vowel triad e–a–oe in Malay tone-words encodes a systematic gradient: e = sharp/clear, a = flat/dull (intermediate), oe = flat/heavy; the absence of tik (with e) from Dewall’s dictionary is explained by the need for the triphthong to be complete, with a occupying its natural position between e and oe (pp. 4–5).
- The final consonant modifies the quantity of the tone without altering its quality: k = abrupt termination; ng = nasal prolongation/resonance (e.g., ting, tang, toeng); m = humming or booming expulsion (e.g., tam, toem); s = continuing sibilant or aspirated quality (e.g., tis, tas, toes) (pp. 8–10).
- The prefix ke is argued to express suddenness and abruptness (a sound proceeding “direct from the throat”), while le expresses frequency and continuity (a vibration of the tongue implying repetition); the two originally repelled each other and could not be combined without metathesis producing keletik (pp. 6–8).
- The semantic extension from ketik (tick) proceeds through functional analogy: tick of a clock → jumping leg of a grasshopper → hammer of a rifle; keting (back of leg) → oerat keting (Achilles tendon) → mengeting (severing that tendon); kentang (doubled form) → wooden block struck by the night-watchman (p. 12).
- Pijnappel identifies a class of “arbitrary” tone-words distinct from involuntary onomatopoeia, which he links to the language of mimicry and gesticulation, citing Professor Gerland’s 1883 article in the Deutsche Rundschau on sign language among Indians as supporting evidence (p. 13).
- His concluding hypothesis holds that the combination of tone-imitative and arbitrary roots with the full range of determinative affixes “must certainly have produced an indefinite number of unconnected, independent languages which have, in some measure, long since disappeared” (p. 14).
Conclusion
Pijnappel’s definitive takeaway is that Malay roots are best understood as monosyllabic, often onomatopoeic elements whose phonetic structure (vowel quality, final consonant) systematically encodes the acoustic properties of the sounds they imitate, and whose derivational morphology (prefixes ke, le, and their combinations) modifies quantity rather than quality to generate new semantic values. He further hypothesises that the diversification of language stocks resulted not from a single proto-language but from the independent combination of imitative and arbitrary tone-roots with affixal systems, producing many languages that have since perished.
Context
- Pijnappel was a Dutch scholar (the article is explicitly marked “FROM THE DUTCH”), writing within the colonial philological tradition of the Dutch East Indies and Straits Settlements, where European administrators and missionaries systematically documented Malay vocabulary and grammar for practical and academic purposes.
- The article draws primarily on Dewall’s large Malay dictionary and Roor’s Javanese grammar as its lexical sources, and it engages with contemporary European philological debates on root structure (Indo-Germanic monosyllabic vs. dissyllabic roots) and the psychology of language origin, situating itself at the intersection of colonial lexicography and 19th-century comparative philology.