Re: Common words for man & husband, woman & wife (was: Brothers-in-law)

Hi all,


On Fri, 5 May 2006, caeruleancentaur wrote:
>
> >Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...> wrote:
>
> >(2) Possibly from the root "empu" = to have, possess;
> >if so, the word "perempuan" literally means "possession";
> >analogous to a wife's chattel status under Common Law
> >until, I believe, the late 19th C.
> >(3) A contraction of "perempuan", formed on the analogy
> >of "Tuan".  Just like a "Mrs.", a "Puan" is the property of
> >a "Tuan" or "Mr."!  As androcentric as can be ...
>
> Do I understand correctly that you are saying that "Mrs." means the
> woman is the property of the "Mr."?  IMO, that is not correct.
Thanks for the correction, Charlie!

But I'd still warrant that Malay "Puan" does embody
the root "empu", "to possess".


> "Mister" is a weakened form of "master."  "Mistress '> misteress'"
> is "master" with the feminine suffix "-ess" (tigress, duchess, et
> al.) and means that the woman herself owns something or is in charge
> of something.  It does not mean that she is owned by the "master."
That's clear, and such a derivation does follow
the pattern of the "-ess" feminine suffix.  I seem
to recall a moment or two in Shakespeare in which
the lady (whether married or not) is addressed as
"Mistress".


> AHD: 1) a woman in a position of authority; 2) a woman owning an
> animal or slave; 3) a woman who has ultimate control over something.
>
> Of course, there are several connotative meanings.
> AHD: 5) a woman who has mastered a skill; 6) a woman who has a
> continuing sexual relationship with a man to whom she is not
> married...; 7) formerly a title of courtesy; 8) _British_ a female
> school teacher.  Only definition 6 suggests being owned, since the
> relationship often involves financial support.
>
> "Miss" is merely a shortened form of mistress.
>
> "Ms." is an abbreviation of "mistress," formed by combining and
> shortening "Miss" and "Mrs."
>
> I digress: I love the etymology of schoolmarm!  "-marm" is a
> dialectal variation of "ma'am, madam."  I don't believe that "-marm"
> exists as an independent word.
And BritE "Mum", as well as, AFAIK, USE "Mom", also
derive from "Ma'am".  As the better-behaved  children
of earlier times called their father "Sir", so too did
they call their mother "Ma'am".

But where did "Dad" come from?  It certainly seems
a bit remote from "father" / "pater" &c.


> Are titles such as Mr., Sr., Herr, Tuan, etc., used in the
> concultures of the members?
None of the Uiama (*), the Pateri (*), or the Ye
Yugi Ga-ba Bu (*), have a title corresponding to
the English "Mr." (nor indeed to an implied status
of "Esquire") nor to its usual European equivalents.
They also do not have a "Lord"/"Herr"/"Tuan"
status title; apart from the Pateri, who used to
have a village headman, these three societies are
rather egalitarian.

The language Shilgna belongs to the English of a
parallel world in which many things are reversed,
but not everything.  Accordingly, we find it has
titles such as "Mr.", "Mrs.", "Miss" and "Master";
and they occur, as in English, as a prefix to a
person's surname.

(*) I still have a lot to learn about these particular
concultures, and will eventually post more data on
them.  Work on Uiama is the most advanced of these
four.

------------------------------
On Fri, 5 May 2006, Roger Mills wrote:
>
> Nik Taylor wrote:
> > Some US states have a similar status, known as "Common law marriages",
> > though, most states have since repealed common-law marriage laws
>
> True enough. (Generally IIRC seven years was the criterion.) But
> the idea of
> _repealing_ "common-law" is a bit of an oxymoron, no? One suspects that
> increasing ease and prevalence of legal divorce, divorce lawyers,
> and greedy
> divorcers had a hand in that. :-(((
>
> More on topic, re words for "husband/wife"--
>
> Proto-Austronesian had *laki 'man, husband', *binay 'woman, wife'
> and *sawa
> 'to marry; spouse'.  Malay/Indonesian has replaced them with loans, suami
> (M), isteri (F), kawin, nikah 'to marry'. ...
Malay uses "kahwin", and has borrowed "nikah".
And "kahwin" includes taking a woman as a de
facto wife, as well as with the blessing of the
law.  It also forms the root of "kahwinkan",
"to marry, mate" used metaphorically, eg of an
electric plug and scoket, or a nut and bolt.


> ... But Ml/In. laki-bini means
> 'husband and wife, married couple'. (And laki-laki as an adj. means 'male
> (human)', 'female (human) is a word unrelated to *binay; the dictionary
> gives bini as 'wife' (and as a verb, to marry=take a wife) but it isn't
> standard Indonesian in my experience-- perhaps colloquial/rural? or maybe
> Peninsular Malay).
Malay:
 "bini" = "wife"
 "berbini" = "married" (lit. "having a wife")
 "memperbinikan" = "to take a wife"
 "bini-bini" = "wives"
 "bini-binian" = "polygynous"

I wouldn't use "bini" as a verb, and never heard
it used thus in any of the several Malay dialects
I know.


> Interesting in itself, that many "native" words have suffered
> pejoration in
> Indonesian (and Malay) and Javanese, and languages influenced by them--
> *bangkay 'corpse' > now refers only to a dead animal, for humans
> it's Arab. mayat;
Yes.


> *bunting 'pregnant'> now only of animals, of humans, again, it's
> hamil (Arab., I assume).
No, not necessarily so; though "hamil" is polite,
"bunting" is not really impolite.  The most polite
form is "mengandong" ("containing"), a euphemism
a little like the English "expecting" or "expectant".


> Even *matay (Ml/In. mati) 'dead' is somewhat
> impolite for people, Arab. wafat is preferred.
Yes; I never heard "mati" used of a person in the
presence of the deceased's relatives and friends,
though euphemisms abound.


> ------------------------------
and later:

> Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
>
> > Malay has two words adopted from the time most
> > Malays were Hindus:
> >  suami = husband
> >  isteri = wife
> > These are still the polite terms.  In common speech,
> > however, one often hears:
> >  laki = husband
> >  bini = wife
> > Although I believe these to be older terms, they are
> > considered rather coarse.
>
> I'm glad to see my speculations (see my earlier msg.) confirmed
> by a native
> speaker. (I gather you are Malaysian, not Indonesian??)
No, I'm Australian, though I spent many years living
and working in Malaysia.  Although I'm not a native
speaker, I was fluent in the standard dialect, as well
as able to use several other dialects fairly well.  But
it's been some years since I was there, and haven't
used Malay daily for quite a while.


> > Other Malay kinship terms relevant to this question:
> > (snip)
> >  jantan = animal male (1)
> >  betina = animal female
> > (1) In the Brunei dialect of Malay, "jantan" is used
> > for all males, whether animal or human.
>
> These 2 are interesting. "Betina" presumably contains *ina
> 'mother', which
> shows up in Polynesian langs. with the added t-; it isn't
> reconstructed for
> PAN but probably should be.
These are almost certainly related to *ina:
 "indung" = "mother";
 "indung madu" = "honeycomb" (lit. "mother of honey")
 "indung mutiara" = "mother-of-pearl"
 "induk" = "dam (animal mother)"
 "induk ayam" = "laying hen"
 "induk kerbau" = "milch-buffalo"
 "perindukan" = "brood (of chickens)"
  (also "rindukan")
 "induk semang" = "landlady"


> "Jantan" I suspect is a Javanese kromo (higher status speech)
> form--there's
> a whole raft of such forms in the Jav. dict., where one
> substitutes /-nt@n/
> for the final [liquid (rl)+vowel] of the common-speech (ngoko)
> form-- thus <
> Old Jav. jalu (~jant@n) 'man, husband' (Malayized to /jantan/; (not its
> modern Jav. meaning, oddly ("cock's spur"), but still found in regional
> langs. as a term for various male things.  Just one more such ex.: soré
> 'afternoon' ~sont@n; and very likely Ml/In. santan 'coconut oil' possibly
> kromo < sari (~sant@n ??) 'essence'. (-nt@n for final -[rl]V is
> just one way
> to make kromo forms.)
???
 "santan" = "coconut milk"
 "kepala santan" = the cream of the coconut milk
 (the first, or "head", of it)
 "minyak kelapa" = "cocunut oil"


> >Tuan = Mr.
> Not used in Indonesia except as highly respectful (too many colonial-era
> associations otherwise); Bapak ~Pak ('father') is usual
As a form of personal address, in face to face
contact, one calls all older men "Pak Cik" (= "uncle",
from "bapak" + "encik"), and all older woman "Mak
Cik" (= "aunt", from "emak" + "encik").

I think of the terms for aunts and uncles as
encapsulating the rule: "All one's parent's siblings
are one's (honorary) parents".


> > Puan = Mrs.
> I never heard this in Indonesia. Ibu ~Bu ('mother') is usual.
> > Encik = Mr. OR Mrs.
> In Indonesia, applied only to Chinese. (I'm told it is originally
> a Chinese term)
> >
> > But for your information, the present
> > Malay marriage customs incorporate both -
> >
> >  - a ceremony of Hindu origin, the "bersanding", in which
> > the couple sit in state for a day, dressed to emulate
> > royalty as well as the groom's family can afford, and
> > receive guests and well-wishers, acting the part of "King
> > & Queen for a day".  They even wear yellow, the colour
> > normally reserved to royalty.  They should comport
> > themselves with appropriate dignity, and their friends
> > have great fun teasing them to try to make them smile;
> > it can be quite an ordeal.
>
> I never attended one, but this sounds a lot like the Bugis/Makassarese
> practice (at least of old nobility/upper-class); there was also a Muslim
> ceremony of course. Curiously, the wedding, which a friend attended, also
> included some officiating _bissu_ -- the old pre-Islamic (!)
> priestly caste of South Sulawesi.
The Malays retain several pre-Buddhist, pre-Hindu,
pre-Islamic beliefs as well - one of the strongest
being in the "semangat padi", the "spirit of the rice",
which farmers take great care to placate every year.

Regards,
Yahya

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