I have previously discussed the difficulties of using a Malay dictionary (e.g.
here). This basically involves removing the prefixes so that you can identify the root of the word, for that is where the word is generally listed. This is not always straightforward, especially for a learner of Malay, as the root of
menyambut ('welcome') is
sambut, while that of
menawar ('make an offer') is
tawar.
I still sometimes get caught out. For example, I wanted to look up
cecair ('liquid'). It turns out that it is listed under
cair ('liquid').
The problem with this is that
ce is not a standard prefix (like the very common prefixes
ber,
ke or
meN). Eventually, I discovered that reduplication is regarded as a standard morphological process, which is why
ce can be added on to the front of the root
cair. Other examples given by
Malay Grammar Made Easy (Liaw Yock Fang, Times, 1999, p. 362) include:
- tetamu ('guest'): root = tamu ('guest')
- lelangit ('palate'): root = langit ('sky')
- lelaki ('man'): root = laki ('husband')
- jejari ('radius'): root = jari ('finger')
- rerambut ('capillary'): root = rambut ('hair')
The problem here is that none of these other words,
tetamu,
lelangit,
lelaki,
jejari, or
rerambut, are shown in the dictionary under their given roots. They are all simply listed as full entries. Only
cecair is listed under the root. No wonder it is so hard to find words like this. Trying to learn Malay really can be frustrating.
