Austronesia

Nope, that's not a new country or territory but a language group which the Malay language is, which comes under a big family of Austris language. To read more about the language, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_language has a good article on it. Speaking of Wikipedia, the idea of such website is just so great! Me for example learned much stuff on it, even things that is everyday to me sounds so interesting. For those who want to "experience" it, try reading this article about Ringgit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringgit. Back to our topic today. Malay language itself has many foreign loan words, in which bulk of it comes from Arabic and Sanskrit. (Modern day Malay has more English loan words) For example : khemah, adil, ajaib, kerusi are from Arabic. What about Sanskrit, you may ask. Here you go : bahasa, bahu, bahaya, negara, muka, angsa, penjara, rugi, naga, kuasa, jambu, guru, jaga, jala, bumi and so on. But, what I want to draw your attention to today is the other group of loan words, those that of European origin : Portuguese and Dutch. See whether you notice these words are from Portuguese : palsu, biola, peniti, limau, bendera, keju, mentega, lampu, bomba, meja, garpu, lelong, Perancis, sekolah, boneka, jendela, markah, paderi, wizurai, dadu, gereja, kemeja. Dutch loan words are as follow : duit, balak, laci, engsel, pajak, senapang, dam. So who say you do not know any foreign language! Also, these are the loan words which it never cross my mind that it's Tamil until I read it up : nelayan, kuda, sate, kedai, kaldai, kanji, bagai, katil, kapal, jodoh, segala, gerudi, kawal, peti. In case you wonder where do I get all this information from, I actually read dictionary. Yes, you read it correctly, i do read dictionary, especially those that has etymology in it. I had bought an English dictionary (and a book) just for the etymology information. Very interesting and increase much knowledge! The etymology for this post comes from an old dictionary by R. J. Wilkinson.