17 February 2010

(men)dakwa

Here's part of another sign I saw in Temburong:
When I first saw it, I thought there was a mis-translation, as mendakwa usually means 'accuse'; and here it is being used for 'prosecute'. (In this case, the passive verb is used: di dakwa; but it is derived from the active mendakwa.)

But then I looked it up in a dictionary and found that mendakwa can have two meanings: 'accuse' or 'prosecute'. So we might say that Malay has the superordinate (more general term) while English has the hyponyms (more specific words). In this case, because the English version uses a more specific term, the translation is not quite equivalent.