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Let's Talk About Malaysian DictionaryAre you always keen to find out about unfamiliar words in Bahasa Malaysia? Is a Malaysian dictionary an indispensable tool for you? My Preference My answers to both questions above are "yes". For my personal use, it is always ekabahasa-100% Bahasa Malaysia. I like it to have the following features: 1.Explaning different meanings of kata berimbuhan or derivatives.
2.Categorize different forms of a word. It is obvious that merujuk, merujuki and merujukkan are all "kata kerja" or verb. How about rujuk? I have one dictionary that says rujuk is a "kata nama", noun. Apparently denoting the act of legally remarry the former wife, but the same dictionary is silent on another meaning of rujuk for "resume", which is a verb in English. Okay,let's go to the authority...Kamus Dewan puts a symbol "Ar" for the first rujuk and a "Ki" for the second. "Kj" is "Kata kerja", "nm" is "Kata nama", "Sl" is " Sastera lama","Bp" is " Bahasa Percakapan","Adj" is " Adjektif" etc. But "Ar"..."Arab"? and "Ki"..."Kiasan"? Does this help you to understand the role of rujuk in a sentence better? Not for me. I do not have this kind of problem with dictionaries of other languages. ( I use only 3 other languages ) Sigh...when will there be an authoritative Malaysian dictionary? 3.Phrases Phrases such as rujuk suara (referendum) , rujuk ke atas ( upward reference ). for some words, the phrases are also simpulan bahasa ( idiom ). For instance for the word air, you find air muka ( appearance ). 4.Pronunciation guide For the stressed vowel e ( e taling ) and the unstressed vowel e ( e pepet ). My Recommendation
To cut down on frustrations, I use kamus dwibahasa published by Collins and Minerva. However, for academic and official purposes, referring to the Malaysiandictionary Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is a must. Kamus Pelajar, Kamus Dewan and Kamus Inggeris Melayu are available online...well most of the time. _________________________________________________________________
A "wrong" word made it to the latest edition of Kamus Dewan! Linguists used to frown upon the colloquial usage of "ori" for "original". If you said," CD yang tak ori, lebih murah." You would be chastised for not using the proper word, asli. ( On top of that, you would also be chastised for not buying an "ori" which may cost RM60 instead of a cetak rompak for as little as RM 1, ha ha ha ) Even the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs was not spared for using "ori" in its anti-piracy advertisment campaign in 2003. Vindication came in the form of being accepted into the 2005 edition of Kamus Dewan. Ori along with other words such as cintan, admiral, adres, heifer, hamster,and even phrases pertaining to keling are among the 5,843 new entries. This makes a total of 82,900 entries in the 1,817 pages of Kamus Dewan. __________________________________________________________________ Suit over use of word in Kamus Dewan The Angkatan Pelopor India Muslim Selangor and Federal Territory (Apim) filed a suit against DBP over the use of the word keling in its Kamus Dewan. The High Court in Kuala Lumpur allowed the suit to be put aside. According to Bernama report, Apim filed the suit on Dec 22, 2005, alleging that the word in the Malaysian dictionary has humiliated the Indian community in the country and that it will appeal against the decision. DBP in its supporting affidavit said that it did not contravene any law according to Section 4 of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (Amended 1997) in publishing the third edition of Kamus Dewan.
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