Home • Forums • Dictionary • Teachers • Reader • Decks • More Tools

Forum Menu

Recent Posts Search Forum Search Members Community Guidelines

Anybody studied Malay, or other languages?

« Back

1 2 »

by:
Jun 08 2020, 12:05am CST ~ 3 years, 11 mos ago.

Besides English (native), and Tagalog (beginner student), here's mine.

Malay: high B2 level at peak
French: mid B1 level at peak
Thai: mid A2 level at peak

They have fallen down to A1 levels due to lack of practice, but should probably take just a few months to get back up to speed.

Malay was the most useful for learning Tagalog. Found so many cognates so far, unsurprising given that both are Austronesian languages. Here's a few.

Malay/Tagalog

bontot/buntot
ass, kinda vulgar/tail

puki/puki
p*ssy, vulgar

sekali/sakali
what if, slang/in case

tengah hari/tanghali
noon

sendiri/sarili
self

harga/halaga
value

sedap/sarap
delicious

babi/baboy
pig

timog/timor
south/east, directions seem to have changed for some reason

Many numbers and pronouns are similar too. Even some monsters! In Malay, there's a strange mythical creature called "penanggalan". It's a floating female head with its entrails dangling. It's so named because "tanggal" means "remove", as in "removed from body". In Philippines, there's a similar folklore, known as "manananggal". It's a female vampire who can separate her upper torso.

Malay Penanggalan
cdnb.artstation.com/ p/assets/images/imag es/017/934/065/large /jean-vervelle-

Philippine Manananggal
i.ytimg.com/vi/18bIu WNZ78w/maxresdefault .jpg

Jun 08 2020, 12:58am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

Malay, though, don't have the Austronesian alignment anymore and it is SVO while Tagalog is VOS/VSO.

Also, Ilocano and Kapampangan have more cognates in common with Malay than Tagalog. Tagalog has more Spanish loanwords than Malay loanwords.

Jun 08 2020, 1:35am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

Yep it's cool that Tagalog has many loanwords from Spanish. Makes me reconsider learning Chinese after Tagalog, and instead learn Spanish due to the common vocabulary.

Jun 08 2020, 2:20am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

I am studying Spanish, Italian, Chavacano, and Ibanag in addition to Tagalog. Chavacano was easy since I already know a decent amount Spanish. Same with Italian. Ibanag is kinda hard due to the scarcity of resources but I'll keep trying to preserve my mom's language.

Jun 08 2020, 3:28am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

@BigGreen
Ah nice, a Romance language guy. I should probably update my French one of these days (or years, considering what a procrastinator I am).

Have heard about Chavacana in the south. But never heard of Ibanag actually. Cool.

Jun 08 2020, 5:10am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

I've studied Indonesian but my goals were to interact with native material so I didn't do a lot of effort on formal Indonesian/Bahasa Baku. Don't forget Malay was spoken in the PH so many "cognates" are just actual Malay loans (not from Standard Malay though!). A few more:

Batu Balani (Batu berani) Magnet
Magdalamhati (dalam hati) Major sadness
Pighati (mystery pig- + malay -hati) major sadness again

Jun 08 2020, 5:44am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

One thing that baffles me a bit is that some Northern languages share a little more cognates with Malay. The difference is pronunciation

Makan, Baru, Mangan are among the similiarities between Malay and Ilocano.

Jun 08 2020, 5:51am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

@akosikoneho

Wait, you studied Indonesian as well??? Very nice. You must be the resident Austronesian go-to guy here.

I hope to get back to Malay one day. Too many language goals at the moment for that to happen anytime soon though.

Jun 08 2020, 5:52am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

Ilocano shares a sound change with Malay. PMP *R became /r/ for them. PMP *R was either a voiced uvular /R/ like in modern French and German, or it was a /G/ sound like the Arabic ghayn 3'. Ilocano and Malay both reflexed *R as /r/. ba*Ru -> baru (new). Tagalog and other Central Languages (roughly corresponding to northern Mindanao and the Bisayas, as well as Bicolandia and the Katagalugan) reflexed it as /g/. Bago. Tagalog: Gabi, Ilocano rabi.

Ilokano does have a lot of similarities at first for reasons I can't guess. The Northern languages are so far beyond my (admittedly narrow) range of knowledge. I just know that in general, the more northern the language, the more conservative grammatically. The more southern, the more innovative.

Jun 08 2020, 6:00am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

^ Wouldn't Tagalog be more "conservative" given how it has more "focus"?

My impression is that, if it has less focus, it indicates that the Austronesian alignment is "receding" until we see languages without the alignment?

Ilocano speakers even roll their r's like in Malay. It's like rrrrrrr... It's Cordilleran Ilocano that doesn't have that because the Cordilleran R is more similar to the English R (at least American English

Jun 08 2020, 6:19am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

@Bituingmaykinang

Ilocano has Agent, Patient, Commitative, Directional, Benefactive, Thematic and Instrumental focuses.

Tagalog has Actor Patient Locative Benefactive Instrumental and Reason.

Jun 08 2020, 6:22am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

^ Do you have a link where I can read up on that?

I can speak Ilocano but I'm not well-versed on the technical aspects.

I think I read a few years ago, an article, stating that it has less focus than Tagalog.

Then again, it could be the disproportionate number of research on Tagalog compared to other languages.

Jun 08 2020, 6:37am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

@Bituingmaykinang

I can dig something up in a bit... I do want a disclaimer, I misspoke about innovation. Tagalog and Ilocano have both innovated from the historical 4 focus system of PMP. I rather should have said "the further south, the more the alignment falls apart" which isn't 100% true but a rule of thumb. By the time you get to North Borneo, the remaining languages that have foci only have 3 compared to tagalogs 6. Past that you move into Indo-Malaysian style voicing of active passive, and then you have creoles that just have active voice (post indonesian-style voicing).

Jun 08 2020, 6:47am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

These voices blow my mind..that they were even invented in the first place and that Tagalog has retained them.

Jun 08 2020, 8:14am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

I wonder if the "voice system"/alignment being lost in Indonesia/Malaysia was a result of having developed from some sort of creole language?! I mean, speakers of Malay and Austronesian languages have less "Austronesian ancestry", so I wonder if as non-Austronesians (except for Negritos in the Philippines who seem to have completely become linguistically assimilated) adopted the languages, that's when the voice/alignment started to fade..kinda like how Chavacano speakers don't conjugate unlike Spanish

I'm actually very interested how Taiwanese languages compare to Tagalog, but literature about it is quite rare

Jun 08 2020, 8:18am CST ~ 3 years, 10 mos ago.

@AMBoy Who ever came up with the verb system thousands of years ago must have been very obsessed with verbs. Haha

1 2 »

Post a Reply»

« Back to Main Page

Become a patron
We love our supporters! :)

© copyright 2024. Do not copy or reproduce content or audio without prior written authorization. Scraping and republishing our data is a copyright violation. We put a lot of hard work and TLC into this website -- please don't copy or publish our content without permission. Terms & Community Agreement