07 March 2016

curhat, taska

I just learned two new words of Malay:

  • curhat, 'to pour your heart out': a blend of curah ('to pour out') + hati ('heart')
  • taska, 'kindergarten': a blend of taman ('park') + asuhan ('take care') + kanak-kanak ('children'). I'm not sure of the difference from tadika, which also means 'kindergarten'

It is interesting that both these blends involve the first part of words, as is the usual pattern for blends in Malay (e.g. cerpen 'short story' = cerita 'story' + pendek 'short'; tadika 'kindergarten' = taman 'park' + didik 'educate' + kanak-kanak 'children').

In contrast English uses the first part of one word plus the end of another (e.g. 'smog' = 'smoke' + 'fog'; 'infotainment' = 'information' + 'entertainment').