International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

search-icon

Malay Science: A Study on the 17th Century Dictionary

Open access
This paper discussed the 17th century Malay civilisation specifically in science. This century was the golden age of Malay as the influences of the Arab and Western regarding technology, science, and literature had given the positive impact on the development of Malay language, especially since they brought together the printing technology to documenting knowledge of the Malays at that time. Immigrants who came to the Malay world were not only carried out trading activities but also conducting research and documenting the language, place, culture, and specific knowledge that is owned by the community. Thomas Bowrey was the first Englishman to make a note on the Malay nation through the dictionary entitled ‘English-Malayo Malayo-English’ which published in 1701. This dictionary is one of the documents produced in the golden age of Malay which describes in details about Malay civilisation of the 17th century. This study uses review method to the vocabulary in the domain of religion, geography, trade, mathematics and astronomy. The study found that vocabulary in the domain of religion contains the Arabic vocabulary such as ‘Allah’ god, ‘syaitan’ devil, ‘Islam’ Islam ,‘Nasrani’ Nazirite. Vocabulary related to geographical such as ‘barat daya’ south-west, ‘barat semata selatan’ south-west, ‘barat semata utara’ north-west. Vocabulary in the domain of trade such as the word ‘lanzan’ almond, ‘mazejon’, bitter almond, ‘saffron’ saffron. Vocabulary in the field of mathematics such as ‘satu setengah’ one half, ‘tiga perempat’ three quarter, ‘codee’ twenty. Vocabulary in the field of astronomy such as the word ‘bintang utara’ the north star, ‘bintang siang’ the morning star, ‘bintang zahar’ the evening star. The vocabulary in Bowrey dictionary meets all the specified fields and show that Malay people in the 17th century already have substantial knowledge of science and it is still relevance until now and even being used at the international level.
Abdul Kadir, M. A. (2015). Pematematikan Simpulan dan Ikatan dalam Bahasa Melayu. In Shaharil Mohamad Zain (Ed.), Unsur Etnosains Malayonesia dalam Bahasa Melayu sejak Abad ke- 5 Masihi (516-559 ). Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.
Ahmad, I. (2002). Perkamusan Melayu suatu pengenalan. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Aminurrashid, H. (1966) .Kajian sejarah perkembangan bahasa Melayu. Singapura: Pustaka Melayu.
Baugh, A.C, & Cable,T. (2002). A history of the English language (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Bejoint, H. (2010). The Lexicography of English. United Kingdom: Oxford.
Bowrey, T. (1701). Dictionary English-Malayo Malayo-English. London: Sam Bridge.
Collins, J. T. (1996). Kata-kata serapan bahasa dalam bahasa Melayu di Malaysia dan bahasa Indonesia:tantangan ilmiah. Dewan Bahasa, 11, 964-981.
Collins, J. T. (1996). Bahasa Melayu abad ke-17:ciri-ciri sosiolinguistik. Dewan Bahasa, 5, 388-406.
Collins, J. T. (2001). Kamus Melayu dan ilmu perkamusan. Dewan Bahasa, 12, 22-30.
Dollah, H. (2015). Cerita jenaka Melayu dan minda matematik pengaryanya. In Shaharil Mohamad Zain (Ed.), Unsur Etnosains Malayonesia dalam Bahasa Melayu sejak Abad ke- 5 Masihi (211-233). Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.
Hasrah, T. (2010). Sistem bilangan Bahasa Melayu pada abad ke-17: Tinjauan terhadap kamus Thomas Bowrey 1701. Menemui Matematik, 32, 1, 45-55.
Hitam, Y. (1961). Kamus Melayu sejak 151. Dewan Bahasa, 4, 151-161.
Hitam, Y. (1961). Kamus Melayu sejak 1511. Dewan Bahasa, 5, 218-231.
Jones, R. (1978). Arabic loan-words in Indonesian. SOAS: London.
Marsden, W. (1812). A dictionary of the Malayan language. New York: Libraries Press.
Mohamad, N. (2016). Leksikografi Melayu: menyoroti sejarah. Proceeding of Workshop on High Impact Journal Writing and Publishing, 1, 155-161.
Mohamad, N., Harun, K., Ismail, N. H. (2015). Perubahan makna dan sosiobudaya: Tinjauan terhadap kamus Marsden 1812. SALPBM IX, November, 194-200.
Omar, D. M. A. (2016). Contextualizing nusantara studies. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 1, 1, 1-6.
Salleh, A.R. (2012). Matematik dalam Budaya Melayu. Bangi: Univeristi Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Zainal, B. (2015). Bintang tujuh dan bintang dua belas dalam pengetahuan tabii Malayonesia. In Shaharil Mohamad Zain (Ed.), Unsur Etnosains Malayonesia dalam Bahasa Melayu sejak Abad ke- 5 Masihi (560-587). Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.
Mohamad, N., & Ismail, N. H. (2017). Malay Science: A Study on the 17th Century Dictionary. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7(6), 986-995.