$TIIDHI$|NDONES|ANlounNAL FoR rsLAMrc sTUDTES Volume 9,

mNumber 1,2002

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Peter G. Riddell

THe THoucHTS AND Relrcrous UruorRsrRruorNG oF

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tssN 0215-0492

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$TUDIA I$TAIIIII(A

V01.9,n0.1,2002

EDITORIALBOARD:M. Quraish Shihnb (IAIN lakarta)Taufik Abdullah (LIPI laknrta)Nur A. Fadhil Lubis (IAIN Sumatra lJtara)M.C. Ricklefs (Melbourne Unioersity)Martin aan Bruinessen (lltrecht lJnioersitv)lohn R. Bowen (Washington Llniaersity, Si. Louis)M. Atho Mudzhnr (IAIN Yogyakarta)M. Kamal Hasan (lnternational lslamic L)niaersity, KualaLumpur)

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFAzyumardi Azra

EDITORSSaifulMujanilamharilajat BurhanuddinFu'ad JabaliOman Fathurahman

ASSISTANT TO THE EDITORSHeniNuroni

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ADVISORChloe l. Ollit;er

ARABIC LANGUAGE ADVISORNursamad

COVERDESIGNERS. Prinkn

STUDIA ISLAMIKA (ISSN 0215-0492) is a journal pubtbhed by the Centerfor the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM), IAIN Syarif Hidayatullah, laknrta( STT D EP P EN N o. 1 29 / SKD IT I EN /P P G /STT /1 97 6 ) and sp ons or ed by the Austr alia-Indonesia Institute (AII). It specinlizes in Indonesian Islamic studies, and is intended tocommunicate original researches and current issues on the subject. Thb jounul warmlywelcomes contributions from scholars of related disciplines.

All articles published do not necessarily represent the aiews of the joumat, or otherinstitutions to which it is ffiIiated. They are solely the uiews of the authors. The articlescontnined in this journal hnae been refereed by the Board of Editors.

STUDIA ISLAMIKA has been accredited by The Ministry of National Education,Republic of lndonesia as an academic journal.

Peter G. Riddell

Literal Translation, Sacred Scriptureand lCtab Malay

Abstraksi: Sejak berabad-abad yang lalu, babasa Melayw telab terse-

bar luas di Kepwlauan Indonesia dan di Dwnia Melayw pada umumnyasebagai bahasa perantara (ingua franca), selain jwga menjadi mediadakzenh agama Islam. Tak beran jika sastra Melayu, yang kebanyakantertulis dengan buruf Arab, sejak azoal telah menyebar pula ke selurwhdunia Nusantara. Perkembangan bahasa Melayu di Nusantara ini, tam-paknya jwga tidak dapat dilepaskan dari konteks islamisasi yang terja-

di saat itu. Dengan perandnnya sebagai bahasa dakuah dan pengajar-a.n agama, bahasa Melayu banyak digunakan oleh para ulama wntukmenwlis berbagai teks keagamaan, baik, yang berupa karangan aslimdupun berupa terjemahan dari bahasa lain, seperti Arab misalnya.

Hanya saja, dalam hal teks keagamaan yang berupa terjemahandari babasa Arab, babasa Melayu yang dipergwnakan tidak jarang di-dnggap oleh sebagian sarjana sebagai "menyimpang" dari ketentuanbahasa Melayu pada wmurnnya, terutdma jika dibanding dengan ba-

basa Melayu yang digunakan dalam berbagai karya sastra. Selain kare-na terjemabd.nnya lebih bersifut barfiyab, juga karena secara lingwistik,babasa Melayu yang digunakan lebib mencerminkan strwktur babasa

Arabnya, dibanding bahasa Melayu itw sendiri. Dengan asumsi semacamini, bahasa Melayu dalam teks-teks keagamaan f{itab Malay) diang-gap oleh sebagian sarjana sebagai bahasa Melayu yang buruk (atrocious

Malay/ dan menjadi tidak penting dipertimbangkan sebagai bagiandari strwktur bahasa Melayu itu sendiri.

Artikel yang ditulis oleh Peter G Riddell ini mencoba mengemuka-kan sebwab pembabasan linguistik terhadap babasa Melayu Kitab, de-

ngan mengambil kasws babasa Melayu yang digunakan dalam KitabTarjumAn al-Mustafid, sebuab kitab tafsir terjemaban pertama dalambabasa Melayw, karangan seorang ulama Melayu terndma asal Aceb,

Studia ltLamib.a, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

2 Peter G. Riddell

'Abd al-Rauf al-Singkili (u. 1693). Selain itu, untuk melakukan kon-trol kebabasaan dalam kajiannya, Riddell juga menyertakan beberapa

contoh bahasa Melayu non-Kitab, yang diambilnya dari sebwab karyasastra Melayw awal abad ke-17, yakni Hikayat Aceh.

Untuk memberikan penilaian atas gaya bahasa Melayu terjemahan

dalam I(tab Malay itu, sesungguhnya banyak bal yang barws dipertim-bangkan, terutarna menyangkut motivasi dan tradisi yang berkembang

dalam penerjemahan kitab-kitab suci pada wmumnya. Dalam tradisiaganxa Kristen dan Bwdha periode azual misalnya, beberapa terjemah-

an kitab sucinyamemanglebih banyak menggwnakan teknik, terjemahanharfi.yah daripada teknik lainnya. Hal ini tampaknya banyak, dipenga-

ruhi oleh keinginan untuk, menjaga "keaslian" baltasa sumbernya, sehing-

ga pada gilirannya diharapkan pula dapat tetap rnenxpertahankan "ke-

su.ciAn" teksnya.

Bisa jadi, garya para penerjemah Muslim Melayw pwn sedikit banyakdipengarubi oleb tradisi penerjernahan kitab-kitab suci periode aualtersebut. Apalagi, dalam konteks Islam, upaya penerjemaban al-Qu-ran ke dalam bahasa lain ini sempat mendapat tantangd.n keras darisebagian Muslim ortodoks, yang nxenganggap babua tidak ada babasa

lain yang dapat merepresentasikan secara wtwh makna yang dikand-ung oleh babasa Arabnya al-Qwran. Pada perkernbangannya, penen-

tangan terhadap upaya penerjemahan al-Quran ini agak mereda de-

ngan muncul dan diterimanya teknik terjernaban antarbaris, yang lebibbersifut harfi.yah, dan dianggap tidak terlalu banyak, memasukkan unsurinterpretasi dari penerjemab.

Dalam artikel ini, Riddell ingin memberikan penjelasan kenapa

karakteristik dan struktur babasa Melayu Kitab, teruta.rna yang beru-

pa terjemaban antarbaris, berbeda dengan karakteristik dan strukturbabasa Melayu pada umumnya? Menurwt Riddell, perbedaan tersebut

rnernang akibat kuatnya pengarub babasa Arab sebagai babasa sum-

bernya. Kendati demikian, kuatnya pengaruh baltasa Arab ini harus

ditempatkan dakm konteks motiaasi dan tradisi penerjemaba.n yang

berkembang dalam penerlemaban kitab-kitab swci di atas, dimand sang

penerjemah berwsaha menjaga keaslian bahasa surnber, yang diyakiniakan berimplikasi pada kesucian teksnya.

Yang jelas, rnenurut Riddell, kuatnya pengaruh babasa Arab dalambahasa Melayu Kitab tersebut tidak sepatutnya dipandang sebagai se-

suatu yang buruk, justru sebaliknya sebagai sebuah kreasi yang beralas'

an, dan karenanya menjadi penting.

Studia klamika, Vol.9, No. 1,2002

Peter G. Riddell

Literal Translation, Sacred Scriptureand l(itab Malav

-u, J{)Jl lb-r U^*:rl,];;.ti d bl,r lJuil J,)11 a-iJJl .rr:^il -uJ :a'p1r

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k'+ ...-..'a," aS tl+i oV)b-es.t^j)"t:-ty ;u>\It a;Ut

Studia Islamika, VoL 9, No. 1,2002

4 Peter G. Riddell

;-e-/.1 r",-a-ll 4t -*ill ;.ilJl .rJLi ,)" ,S- ,tt-cl )*i U ,i &d $f-Jl e+j.llJ ilJJ! ,;t " L*i o-[r ;.rS ,:"I_,Lo!l e C"y";i ua+*}*!' ,tt-f

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g a,-u.:-Jl -*+)lt ailjl it-3t ,)>1(Kirab Malol) t)J\ a""1.rJl uil a;J ;,o

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';U;g,-,i J+-., ts1-t^{ Co\}\s k,e: 4"-6:

Le -r,f eu: dr .J*<,rr jfr :y::#Ufirff :

Studia klamika, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2002

Literal Translation

Atrocious Malay?he Malay language has for many centuries been the most widely

used means of inter-ethnic communication throughout the

Southeast Asian archipelago. Literature in Malay dates back to

the 14th century. In the 20th century, diaiects of Malay were estab-

lished as the national languages of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and

Brunei. At the turn of the 21" century, there were perhaps 20 millionnative speakers of Malay, with over ten times that number speaking

the language as a second or national language (I{rat2,1999: 47).

The study of Malay dialects was a specialist concern during the pe-

riod of Dutch colonisation of Indonesia and British colonisation of the

Malay peninsular. In recent times, the Malaysian National Language

Council, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, and its Indonesian counter-

part, the Pusat Pembtnaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa (PPPB), have

devoted considerable resources to the study of Malay dialectology. Such

diaiect studies have necessarily had a geographrcal focus, by way ofdescriptive grammars of Malay dialects spoken in particular areas. Ex-

amples are the studies of Pontianak Malay (I{amal et. al' 1986) and

Palembang Malay (Aliana et. aL 1987) published by the PPPB.

The variant of Malay under examination in this Present paper is not

peculiar to a particular town, city or region. It crosses geographical

boundaries; it is, nevertheless, subject to certain del,imitations. The van-

ant in question has at times been referred to as Kitab Malay, and this is

the term that will be used throughout this paper' It refers to the Malay

used in religious writings, which are translations or renderings of' or

closely based on, original works written in Arabic. It has received occa-

sional attention from scholars, with some focusing on the use of spe-

cific lexical items (Drewes, 1950; I(aptein, 1995), and others undertak-

ing a more systematic analysis of the syntax and semantics of l{itab

Malay works (R.onkel, 1899; Fokke4l'909 Riddell, 1979; Riddell, 1990).

I{itab Malay emerged during the early period of Islamisation ofthe Malay World. I{ratz expresses well the way in which translation

intersected with the spread of the new faith:

,Places of religious learning were involved constantly in ttanslating from Ara-

bic and Persian into Malay; even if the pute Islamic scholar of South East Asian

origins still would ptefer to use Arabic above any other language - including his

own mothet tongue, Sufi treatises, Quranic studies, and the hadith would be trans-

lated into Malay for the purpose of da'zpah and fot the benefit of the wmmat ar

large. Tl-re stories of the Ptophet and his companions, hagiographies and other

treatises would be translated and adapted' (Kratz, 1999: 54)

Studia Islamiha, Vol. 9, No. 1,20A2

Peter G. Riddell

The earliest Islamic texts in Malay of which we have survivingexamples date from the late 16'h to eaily 17th centuries. They wereproduced during a period of great hterary activity in Malay. Thesereligious texts wefe contemPofaneous with a large number of secular

historical and folk stories that were composed by anonymous au-

thors. These stories include such classics as the Sejarah Melayu QvIaIayAnnals) and the various epic writings that are considered as classic

Malay Hikayat"At the beginning of the 20th century, the British scholar Richard

Sfinstedt made a study of the language of the gre^t M^l^y secular

classics, and ptesented his analysis in the form of a reference gramrnar

of what was, in effect, Classical Malay. In a chapter of his gr^mmalentitled 'Style', STinstedt identifies what he calls four styles of Malayas follows fWinstedt, 1,927: 1,77-1.82):

1.. Bazaar Malay2. Polite Malay3. Court MaIay4. Literary Malay

He makes no mention of the MaIay used in religious texts in his

reference gr^mmar, but he does refer to such a variety of Malay in his

other writings, In discussing the religious classic Tij al-Sahtn, NTinstedt

write s:

'...its date (1603) makes it probable that the ttansiation was done at Acheh,then the fitst Muslim power amoflg the Malays. Ttanslation thete would also

condone the attocious Malay idiom.' flX/instedt, 1958: 114)

He lays the blame for what he saw as poor Malay squarely at the

feet of Muslim writers who oroduced their vr'orks in Aceh:

'... these Muslim teachers... murdeted Malay idiom and inttoduced fot Atabictheological terms Malay synonyms as unintelligible as those employed by someBritish translators of Hegel and.Kant.' (-i7instedt, 1958: 113)

\fith such an opinion, it is not surprising that Winstedt did notinclude the Malay of religious works as orie of the recognised styles ofMzlay in his reference grammar. I

These comments by Winstedt imply that we should dismiss thelanguage of Malay religious texts as being a virtual aberration unwor-thy of serious linguistic study. But there is much more to this ques-

tion than meets the eye. In order to give such a language variant the

Stutlia klamiha, VoL 9, No. 1, 2002

LiteralTranslation 7

attention it deserves, we rieed to look briefly at the historical back-

ground of translation theory and practice.

Translation TypesIn his study of the categoties of translation, Newman (1980:100

ff) Iists five major types:

1. Referential (e.g. instruction manuals, scientific/technical works)2. Literary/poetic ('...semantic information is chiefly filtered through

the aesthetic medium...')3. Creative (interpretative and symbolic effort)4. Literal intedinear ('...strives to be faithful to the syntactic form of

the original even at the expense of violating the norms of the

T(arget) L(anguage)...'5. Scholady ethnographic (conveys meaning in the light of the social

and cultural setting).For our purposes, type (4) above is of particular relevance.

Newman points out that in the literal intedinear translation, doctri-nal, ideological and pedagogical considerations come into play, as willbe discussed later.

I{atherine Barnwell draws a rwofoid distinction at the macro-level

in types of translations, comprising literal translations, which follovr'as closely as possible the form of the language which is used in the

original message', and meaning-based translations, which aim 'to ex-

press the exact meaning of the original message in a way that is natu-

ral in the new language' (Barnwell , 1'992: 1'3).

Thus literal translation is well established as an element in the

mosaic of translation techniques. It achieves particular prominencein the translation of sacred scripture in widely divergent religious

traditions.

Literal Translating in the Judeo-Christianand Buddhist Traditions

The early translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek undertaken

by Aquila, Theodotion and S1'ms2chus in the 2"d Century A.D. were

the result of literal techniques of translation (Sawyer, 1999:90)' Writ-ing of Aquila's ttanslation, Nida notes that Aquila 'composed barba-

rous Greek in an attempt to be faithful to the Hebrew original' (1rlida,

1.964: 23). It is worth noting that although the texts, and indeed the

religions, in question were very different, Nida's opinion of the ('bar-

barous') language of Aquila's target text is reminiscent of Winstedt's

Studia Islamika, Vol.9, No. 1,2002

Peter G. Riddell

attitude towards the ('atrocious') Malay of religious works translatedfrom Arabic.

In referring to Aquila's translation, Pattie takes a somewhat more

tolerant view:

'His was an extremely literal version of the official Hebterv text, which repto-

duced in Greek not only the sense, but also the idrom, gtammar and even the

etymology of the Hebrew, sometimes at the expense of clatity... Its great merlt was

that it could be used to ttanslate back into Hebrerv with absolute reliability, and

readets could therefore be sute that God's words had suffered no corruPtion. Tothose who knew no Hebrew, however, this translation made awkward reading.'

Qattie, 1,979: 7)

In this statement, Pattie introduces an additional dimension to the

purpose of literal translation; namely, the facilitation of readers' ac-

cess to the form of the original source text.In the middle of the 16th Century, Arias Montanus in the Antwerp

Polyglot translated the Old Testament into Latin with a very literalstyle. Nida reports that he invented new Latin v/ords to enable himto translate the same Hebrew stem by a single corresponding Latinstem, and by so doing, he 'violated the good canons of Latin usage'

(I'{ida, 1964: 23).

Similarly Jerome's translation of the Nevr Testament from Greek

into Latin appears to have been rather cumbersome stylistically. He

was concerned to render all the minutiae of the source text, stating

that 'every word, syllable, accent and point is packed with meaning'

(Sawyer, 1999: L09, citing I{elly). It is reported that at the time of the

Reformation, Cardinal Bembo avoided reading Jerome's translationfor fear that it would corrupt his Latin stylel

Translations of sacred scripture into Greek and Latin were by no

means the only ones to rely upon a literal technique of translation. Ina monumental study of translations of the Bible into English fromthe earliest period, Pope (1952) shows clearly that literal techniques

characterised the early translations of the Old and New Testaments

into Old and Middle English. Around 1000 A.D. the Eng[sh monkAelfric translated various books of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon. In his

work, Aelfric stated clearly his princrples of translating as follovrs:

'Nothing should be written in English but what is found in the Latin, notshould the otdet of the words be changed, except when the Latin and English

modes of exptession diffet.' (Pope, 1952: 24)

Studia Islamika, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

Literal TransLation

Another E,nglishman, Richard Rolle, undertook the translationof various parts of the sacred scriptures some 350 years iater. Butdespite the lapse of time, it seems that the techniques of translationhad developed little. Pope describes Rolle's method as '...pure gloss-ing; there is no attempt at translating or producing a running versionwhich could be read currently...' (Pope, 1952: 27). This is clear fromRolle's renderins of Psalm 1:2:

Et ln Iege ejus meditabitut die nocte

And 1n his laghe he shall thynke d"y and

= "And on his law he meditates day and niqht."

It should be noted that the literal technique of translation has byno means disappeared in the modern era when translating Christiansacred scripture. Multilingual Bibles such as that by Green (1986) willstill often present the original Hebrew or Greek text v/ith interlinearglossing in Engilsh to enable the reader to come to terms with thegrammatical structure of the original text in Hebrew or Greek.However, in such modern cases, there will also usually be a freertranslation inro English in the margin.

The use of interlinear or literal techniques for translation of sacred

literature is also found within the Buddhist tradition. OI{el] made alinguistic study of Nissaya Burmese, which is the style of Burmese used

in translations of Buddhist sacred texts from Pali. Each word or phrase

of a Pali text is followed immediately by its Burmese translation.In the following example (Ol{ell 1965:223), which is taken from a

text translated in the second half of the 18'h century,2 the NissayaBurmese is given under the Pali as a gloss, which more clearly indi-cates the word-for-word nature of the translation:

2 Tato Patthalt a Bodhi satassa \r 2so

Thui akha mha CA fwe Bhuta"lon" cann"cim k hy am "sa

That trme begin Lotd-to-be GEN luxury wealth

m aha ahosi

sann mya senn aNOM gfear PRED. ADJ was

= 'Ftom that ume onwatds, the Bodhisatta lived in great wealth and lururl'."

Studia hlamika, Vol.9, No. 1,2002

Peter G. Riddell

Ol(ell says that the Nissaya texts:

....rvere intended not only to give the readet the meaning of the PaLi text but

also to enable him to consttue its gtammat... the Nissaya wtiters were ahle to

represent, with rematkable accutacy, the inflections and syntax of Pali, an Indo-

European language, in unrelated Butmese, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan

family and is latgely mono-syllabic.' (OKell, 1965: 187)

This echoes Pattie's Previously mentioned observation about one

of the functions of literal translation techniques in the biblical context.

Literal Translating in the Muslim Vorld$7hat of the ttanslation techniques used in the Muslim wodd? This

issue arose in the eady cenfuries of Islam, as the new faith conquered vast

areas and substantial populations. Many non-Arab subiects in the Islamic

empire converted to Islam and posed a challenge to scholars regarding

their right and method of access to the Arabic text of the Qur'an. Inresponse, the law schools of the maiority Sunni community opposed

formal translation of the Qur'anic text into other languages.

However, after continuing debate oYer time, scholars came to ac-

cept the notion of rendering the Qur'an in the form of a commen-

tary in other languages. 'Thus manuscripts of the Qur'an might be

provided with an interlinear (quasi-)translation' (Paret, 1'986: 429),

but this was seen merely as commentary, with the inclusion of the

Arabic text being obligatory.A literal method of translation was simultaneously used by Arab

translators working on Greek philosophical texts, and had become

the established technique during the reign of the 'Abbasid Caliph al-

Ma'mfin (r. 813-833) in the ninth century' The Arabs had themselves

borrovzed this technique from earlier Syrian tfanslators who had used

it in translating Greek Christian literature based on sacred scripture

(Peters, 1968: 64-65)

The fourteenth-century Muslim biographer, al-Safadi, identifiedrwo distinct methods being used in the Arab wodd in his time for the

translation of Classical Greek philosophical works into Arabic; these

methods reflect the twofold distinction mentioned by Barnwell pre-

vio u s Iy:

1. A word-for-word correspondence technique, which imported

Greek syntactic features into the Arabic of the translation on a

massive scale.

Studia IsLamiba, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

LiteralTrandation 11

2. A freer technique, where the meaning content of each Greek sen-

tence was translated without adhering to Greek syntactic patterns.

The Arabic of such translations adhered to the syntactic norms ofIiterary Arabic. (Peters, 1.968: 63-64)

So when Malay Islamic scholars went to study in Arabia from the

16th century onwards, they would have encountered a variety ofmethods of translation. Furthermore, they would have been aware

of the earl'ier debate surrounding translation of the Qur'an into lan-guages other than Arabic. At this time, the only acceptable techniqueamong Muslim orthodoxy of rendering the Qur'an into other lan-guages was the interlinear method.

Thus rt was a well-established practice within diverse religious tra-ditions to use literal techniques as the primary method in translating

sacred texts from the original language to a target language. Let us

now turn our attention to examining the effect of this translationtechnique on a particular t^rget language: Malzy.

Kitab MalayFor this paper v/e will consider the influence from Arabic on the

Malay language of Tarjumin al-Mustafid (TM), the Qur'anic render-ing and commentary written by 'Abd al-Ra'uf ai-Singkili around 1675.

This provides us with an appropriate example of I{itab MaIay.In assessing the 'aberrant' nature of 'Abd al-Ra'ufs I{itab Malay,

we need a model of 'standard' non-Arabicised Literary Malay to serve

as a control. For this purpose we have chosen a work which is broadly

contemporaneous with Tarjumin al-Mustafid, and is not a transla-

tion from Arabic or directly influenced by Arabic religious or philo-sophical doctrine. The work in question is the Hikayat Aceh (HA),an anonymous work which was apparently commissioned by Sultan

Iskandar Muda, the most famous ruler of the I{ingdom of Aceh (r.

1,607-1.636).It thus dates from the early part of the 17'h century. Itbegins with a detailed genealogy of Iskandar Muda and the greaterpart is devoted to singing the praises of this monarch under whoserule Aceh reached the peak of its power and influence.3

Some biographical notes on 'Abd al-Ra'uf will help us to under-

stand the sources for the enormous degree of Arabic influence on his

Iife and work. He was born in about 16i5 in the town of Singkel inSouthern Aceh on the N7est coast of Sumatra at a time when the

Muslim Acehnese Empire v/as at its peak. His early life coincided

Studia IsLamika, VoL 9, No. 1, 2002

Peter G. Riddell

with the v/riting of the Hikayat Aceb, so the Malay of the HA rndthe Literary Malay he vrould have encountered as a young lrlult musthave been virtually identical. He spent the period 1.642-1661 studyingthe Islamic sciences in the Arab world, including periods in Mecca,

Medina, Jeddah and also at aI-Azhar University in Cairo. On his re-

turn to Aceh he established a mzdrasa (Islamic school for study of the

Qur'an), at which he taught his approach to the Islamic sciences, in-cluding mysticism.

The length of time which 'Abd al-Ra'uf spent in the Arab vrorldundoubtedly had an effect on his command of the Malay language.

He spent the crucial years in terms of the formation of his particularreligious doctrine studying and writing in Arabic and situated in an

Arabic milieu. One could reasonably assume that he vrould have feltsome degree of linguistic dislocation on his return to Aceh in 1,66I.

Voorhoeve makes several revealing comments on the Malay of 'Abdal-Ra'uf's writinss:

'... his ttanslations ftom the Arabic are so litetal that they are unintelligiblewithout knowledge of that 1anguage...'ffoorhoeve, 1960: 88)

and further:

'... the Sultan (of Aceh) engaged Abdutrauf to wtite a fiqh (luttsprudence)wotk in Malay; the request was refused as he didn't have a proper command ofBahasa Melayu Pase due to the length of time he had spent in the Arab world.'

ffoothoeve, 1980: 4)

It is fair to assume that 'Abd al-Ra'uf did not feel totally at ease inMalay when he returned to Aceh after

^fl absence of nineteen years.

However. several factors must be remembered if we are to make an

accurate assessment of his facility with Malay. Firstly, he spent the

first twenty-six years of his life as the subject of an empire whereMalay was the established language of administtation. Acehnese was

not used as a written language until some 100 years later. Moreover,

he was in Aceh from 1,661 until his death in 1.693, a period duringwhich he wrote prolifically, so he must have been in a position toregain any lost mastery of Malay during that time.

The fact remains that his translations from Arabic, as exemplifiedby Tarjumi.n al-Mustafid, are very literal. He frequently used a tech-

nique of word for word correspondence between the Arabic and Malay

and gave little regard to adhering to standard Literary Malay syntac-

Studia Islamiha, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

Literal Translation l3

tic patterns, viith the result that the product is virtually Arabic insyntax and Malay in vocabulary. This of course raises several crucialquestions: can these stylistic features be held up as proof that 'Abd al-

Ra'uf merely had a poor grasp of Malay, or did he have some otherpurpose in translating with such a style? Why didn't he adhere toLiterary Malay syntactic norms?

The answer lies primarily in the apparent conviction of the trans-Iator that he was engaged in a task of 'sacred reproduction' in whichhe had to change the original divinely inspired revelation as little as

possible on the one hand, while making the message accessible to hisMalay-speaking readers on the other,

\?hen 'Abd al-Ra'uf was studying in the Arab world during the1640s and 1660s, he would have encountered a variety of translationtechniques, ranging from the literal to the freer methods, as we saw

in previous discussion, It would appe^r that he settled on the literalmethod of translation as the only appropriate technique for the ren-dering of sacred scriptures into Malay. This was consistent with weli-established approaches to translating sacred scripture within otherreligious traditions, as we have seen.

Thus Arabic, a ).anguage from the Scmitic family with a reason-ably sophisticated system of inflection, v/as mirrored in many waysin the I{itab Malay used by'Abd al-Ra'uf, although the standard Malay

of the period belonged to a totally different language family (i.e.

Austronesian) in which verbal inflection was not productive. Thisparallels the case of Nissaya Burmese, cited previously.

Arabic Influence on the Syntax of Kitab MalayWe will now focus more specifically on the system of Arabic verb

inflection, it's rendering in the I(tab Malay of Tarjumin al-Mustafid,and certain rypes of morpho-syntactic influence upon the Idtab Malay

of this text.The Arabic verb is inflected for the following categories:

. Aspect: perfective, imperfective

. Voice: active, passive

. Mood: indicative, subiunctive, iussive, energetic, imperative

. Person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd

. Number: singular, dual, plural

. Gender: masculine. feminine

Studia hlamika, Vol.9, No. 1,2002

14 Peter G. Riddell

Verbal Inflections for AspectMany traditional grammars of Arabic take the view of Thatcher

(,942: 62) .vho writes:

'The vetb has two main tenses: the Perfect ... denoting a finished action, andrh. T-^..r.-, .l..a1jng unfinished action.'

However, the Arabic Perfect and Imperfect are not primarily con-

cerned with time relations, namely past, present and future, which is

characteristic of the category of Tense (Trask, 1.999: 31.1). Rather

they are aspectual distinctions, referring to the state of the action and

the degree of its completion. Thus the perfective aspect generally re-

fers to a finished act and the imperfective aspect denotes an unfin-ished act; namely one that is just beginning or is in progress.

The aspectual distinctions in Arabic are well exemplified by the

verb 'arafa ('to know').

3 araf tu dhAlika

know 1'. SING. PERF. that

= 'I (come to) know that.'

4 kun -tu a 'rif -u dhalika

be 1" SING. PERF. 1" sING.IMPERF.

know IMPERF. that

'I knerv that.

5 a rif -u dhAlika

1..SING. IMPERF. know IMPERF. that

= 'I know that.'

In example 3, the perfective verb 'araftu indicates a completedevent, namely 'I came to know that'. It is not a translation for 'Iknew that', which semantically is a continuing state in the past. This

state is rendered by the imperfective verb in example 4. It is placed inpast time by the use of the verbal auxiliary kuntu.

The imperfective verb in example 5 refers simply to the continu-ing state of knowing, without specifying time.

\X/e now turn to the verbal system of Literary Malay as seen in the

Hikayat Aceh, mentioned earlier. Literary Malay verbs were not in-

Stud.ia klamika, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

Literal Translation l5

aspect like Semitic verbs, as examples 6, 7 and 8 demon-flected forstfate:

= 'Then they made a stand in Suka Mandi.'

= 'My Lord, the Aru ate tunning amok.'

8 Nfaka rendak di- Langzr orang Aceh KOta Itu iHA 180: 271)

Theo Wish oBJ. FOC. Invade reople (S) Aceh town (O) iDJ

= 'The Acehnese wanted to attack that town.'

Note that examples 6-8 were not marked for either aspectual ortemporal factors. In Literary Malay, these features were usually evi-

dent from context.Example 6 has been translated with a verb in the past tense in

English as the use of maka suggests ^ naffative in the past.

Example 7 has been translated with a present continuous verb inEnglish as it occurs in dialogue and refers to a contlnuous action.

However, we must note that the verb itself does not play any role inspecifying such temporal or asPectual notions.

Example 8 shows the verb taking the prefix di-, but this signifies

an obtect focus construction only.s Time notions, reflected in the

past tense of the English translation, are obtained from the presence

of maka- as well as the context within the broader discourse.

Let us no'w consider the I{itab Malay of TarjwmLn al'Mustafr'd and

the way in which the Arabic aspectual distinctions were rendered by

'Abd al-Ra'uf.Example 9 (following) demonstrates the type of influence upon

'Abd al-Ra'ufs I(tab Malay syntax which was caused by Arabic per-

fective aspectual inflections contained in the Qur'anic text.

9 lnna -hum fity atun

Verily 3.d PLUR. youths

Bahwa sanya mereka itu segala jemaah yang telah

Verily 3'd PLUR. y ouths REL already

Studia klamika, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

o Maka mereka Ltu ber- tahan di Suka Mandi. FIA 173: 254)'

Ther thev (S) AL) lNTRANS Stand firm o Suka Mandi.

1 Tuank ofang Aru m eng- amuk (HA 84: 40)

M1'lord people Aru (S) suBJ. FOC. pillage

Peter G. RiddelL

aman -u bi rabbi -him a 18: 13r

bel.ieve 3'd PLUR, PERF. 1n Lord 3'd PLUR.

Pefcay a meteka.itu ak an Tuhan mereka itu TM 18: L3.

believe 3'd PLUR. 1n Lord 3.d PLUR

' - 'Vetily they were young men rvho had believed in theit Lord.'

According to the norms of standard Literary Malay as represented

by the Hikayat Aceh, telah is not necessary as the narrative contextwould specify perfective aspect. However 'Abd al-Ra'uf inserts telahin order to render the perfective aspect of the Arabic verb Antanfr.This use of telah occurs frequently throughout Tarjumin al-Mwstafid,reflecting the occurrence of the perfective in the Arabic original. Itappears again in example 10:

10 labi th -na yawman arI/ ba'da yawmln a 18:19

stay 1st PLUR.PERF,

d^y of Parr day

Telah berh enti kita sehati t2U setengah hari. TM 18:19

Already stay 1st

PLUR,dny o1 Pafr d^y

= '\l/e hrve tarried a day, or part of a day.'

Herc telah is also unnecessary if we adhere to the norms of Liter-ary Malay. In renderings of the Qur'an into modern Indonesian/MaIay, neither telah nor swdah (its synonym) occurs in the transla-tions of this passage (Al Quraan Dan Terjemahnya,1.974: 446; Junus,1.977:267; Jassin, 1978: 399). Thus there would appeat to be less inter-ference from the Arabic perfective aspect in modern Qur'anic Malay

that in 'Abd al-Ra'uls Tarjumi.n al-Mustafid.

Verbal Inflections for Person and NumberVerbal inflections for person and number in Arabic were the cause

of a considerable amount of morpho-syntactic interference in theI{itab Matay of 'Abd al-Ra'ufs Tarjumin al-Mustafid.

If we refer back to example 9, this type of interference is in evi-dence. In the Malay, mereka itu is included after the verb percaya rn

order to render the 3rd person plural inflection -il. on imanL. In Ara-bic, the verb in the relative clause is inflected to agree rvith the person

Studia Islamika, VoL. 9, No. 1, 2002

Literal TransLation 11

and number of the antecedent in the main clause. Thus 3rd person

plural -fi. agrees with fi.tyatun, one of the plural forms of fatan (Vehr'

1,976: 69). Such agreement did not occur in Literary Malay. How-

ever, .Abd al-Ra'uf inserts mereka itw in the relative clause as a fen-

dering for -fi on imanit., thus followrng Arabic gfammatical Pattefnsand violating Literary Malay morpho-syntactic norms.

Furthermore, the Arabic dual number makes ^n

a2pear^nce in the

ICtab Malay of 'Abd al-Ra'uf in a way which would not be found in

Literary Malay.

11 Fa arad Ln yubaddil -humA

coNJ wish 1" PLURPERF

that exchange SUBJ 3.I PLURDUAL

Maka kami kehendaki bahv,ta diganti

coNJ 1" PLUI wish that exchange

khay ran minhu Q18:81

better than him

yang lebih baik dari padany a TM 18:81

better than him

= ,So we wished that the God of them both would substitute a mo(e vlrtuous

one fot (the benefit of; them both."

The presence of two instances of keduanya in the Kitab- Malay ofexample 11 is dictated by the Arabic dual forms yubaddilabumi and

rabbwhumL. Such repetitious use of this term is not a feature of Liter-

ary Malay.This feature is not peculiar to the I(tab Malay of 'Abd al-Ra'uf'

Consider example 1'2, drawn from the MaIay commentary on Sura

18 held in the Cambridge University library, focusing on verse 61:

Studia Islamiba, VoL 9, No' 1,2002

rabbu -humi

God 3d PLUR DUALoleh Tuhan keduanya akan keduanya dengan

by God both for both .rith

18 Peter G. RiddeLl

nasry -a h0ta -humA

forget DUAL fish DUAL POSS.

Iupaiah keduany a akan ikan kerinq ituforget two that dried fish

= "Sflhen the pair arrived at the junction (of the two seas) they both fotgottheir fish.,."

In example 1.2, the Arabic originai includes four inflections mark-ing the dual number. The Malay translator has chosen to render twoof these, presumably not rendering all four, as this viould have pro-duced an unacceptably cluttered sentence in Malay.

Vord Order ConsiderationsThe language of the Hikayat Aceh suggests that the preferred word

order in Literary Malay sentences according to verbal prefixes was as

follows, in order of priority:

1. SVO (ber-/me-lpe-l E- verbs) - the unmarked word order2. VS(O) (di- / E- vetbs, Object focus sentences)

Examples 6 and 7 exemplify the SVO group, while example 8

shows the order in sentences wtth di- verbs in Literary Malay.The case in Qur'anic Arabic is somewhat different, as it has a pref-

erence for verb-initial sentences (Cowan, 1958: 57). Example 13 shows

the unmarked VSO v/ord order in Classical Arabic:

1.3 Wa idh qal -a M0si li fatAhu Qt8:60And when say 3'd SING.

PERF.

Moses (S) to his servant

dikata oleh Musa akan orang mudanya TM 18:60

say Moses (S) to his servant

Moses said unto his servant ..

In Qur'anic Arabic, case markers on nouns specify syntactic func-tions such as subject and object, allowing a measure of word order

Studia Islamika, VoL9, No. 1,2002

1,2 lamma balagh -a malma a bay nr himmd

coNJ when arrlve DUAL IUnctlOn Detw een DUALlvl aka tatkala sampailab keduany a kepada... majma'

^l L^L**-^..-

CONT when afrlve two to the junction

flexibility. lfhent^f^-^ +1^- -,--l-uLrurl LrfL vLru,

ample 14 shows:

added emphasis isproducing a marked

Literal Translation 19

required, the subject is placedword order of SV (O), as ex-

T4 Nahnu na- q uss -u aray Ka Q18:13\7e (S) 1$ PLUR.

IMPERF.tell I1vl l'l1t(f. to you (u)

I{ami ceri tak an atasmu IM 18: lwe (Jl tell to you (O)

= 'We will relate unto thee'

In Arabic sentences where the subject is marked by a verbal in-flection and there is no independent subiect, this inflection is attached

to the end of the stem of perfective verbs (examples 3 & 10) ^nd

at

the front of the stem of imperfective verbs (examples 4 & 14).

So how was Literary Malay, with an unmarked SVO structure,going to adapt to the syntactic patterns of Qur'anic Arabic, whichwas VSO in unmarked form? The method of

^d^Dt^tlon had several

interesting manifestatlons.Firstly, 'Abd al-Ra'ufs I(tab Malay depended heavily on the use

of di- verbs, which as \r/e have seen is the verbal form which most

commonly allows a marked VSO word order. Although in LiteraryMalay OVS was also a common pattern for sentences with di- verbs,

this particular word order pattern rarely occurs in the 'Abd al-Ra'uftext.

The second majot effect that manifested itself in the I(itab Malay

of 'Abd al-Ra'ufs Tarjumin al-Mustafrd relates to the ber- verbal pre-

fix. In Literary Malay, ber- verbs typically occurred in SV(O) struc-

tures. This was seen in example 6 above. A further example, taken

from the 17'h century Hikayat Muhammad Hanafiyydh (Z^ini-Lajoubert 1983:113), is as follows:

15 I^ lah yang ber- Binasa flegefr hamba

SING (S)

EMPH REL TRANS Destroy

0fcountfy(o) SING

= 'It was he rvho destroved mv counffv.'

In an earlier examination of 206 sentence examples taken from17'h century Literary Malay texts, I found that almost 250/o of verbsused v/ere ber- prefxed, with around nine in ten follorving an SV(O)

Studia Islaniha, Vol.9, No. 1,2002

Peter G. Riddell

pattern (Riddell 1990:87). However, in Tarjwmin al'Mwstafid, ber-

verbs occurred far less frequently (in less than 10o/o of examples sur-

veyed). \flhere it did occur, it was frequently in a verb initial clause

situation, as cari be seen in example 16 following.

16 la wallay -ta mln -hum Q18: l8

vcril y rurn away 2.d SrNG. PERF. (S) from 3'PLURN iscaya berpaling engkau daripada mereka itu TM 18: t8

verlly tuln avay 2'd SING. (S) from 3'd PLUR.

= t'frrrlrr rrn,, t'rrnerl errr.r' frnm rhem '

- r I qr)

Causes of this type of interference were two-fold:1. Pressures from the Arabic VSO system

2. Influence from inflections for person and number, which were

attached to the end of Arabic verbal stems in perfective aspect.

In the case of the imperfective aspect in Arabic, the subject is sig-

nalled by an inflection at the front of the verbal stem. It would be

instructive to see if in such cases the Malay subject was placed before

the verb in 'Abd al-Ra'ufs Tarjumi.n al-Mustafid. Indeed, this proves

to be a m^jot factot affecting the placement of subiect before verb in

the I{tab Malay, as example 17 shows:

li na bluw -a hum Q18: 7

so that 1" PLUR.TMPERF. (S'

ICSI SU B-

JUNCTIVE

supay a I(ami cobai akan mefeka ltu TM 18:7

so that 1" PLUR.(s)

test urljMKR

3'd PI,U R,

(o)

= 'So that We put them to a test.'

So again vie find the Arabic verbal inflection for person and num-

ber being instrumental in determining the ICtab Malay word order.

A third maior effect of Arabic syntactic interference in the I(tabMalay of 'Abd al-Ra'ufs Tarjumin al-Mustafid v/as that meN- verbs

did not occur to the same degree of frequency as was the case in the

primary Ltterary Malay source consulted, the Hikayat Aceh. In my

e^rIier research, I had found that 32oh of the Literary Malay clauses in

my corpus were built on nxeN- verbs, with almost all following an

Studia IsLamika, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

Literal Translation

SVO pattern (Riddell 1990:87). However, TarjumAn al-Mustafid used

meN- verbs much more sparingly, with this form appearing in only

1.30/o of cases examined (Riddell 1990:89). This is due to the fact that

the unmarked svo pattern in meN- clauses in 17',h centufy Malav did

not sit comfortably wi.th the unmarked VSO pattern of Arabic'

lfhen it did occur in Tariumin al'Mustafid, word order varied

between vSo and SVO. \fhen meN- verbs occurred in SVo sen-

tences, this word order was often a reflection of an original matked

SVO pattern in the Arabic, as can be seen i'n example 18:

18 wa kalbu -hum bisitun dhiri -^y -hi Q18: 18

And dog (S) 3'd

PLUR.extendingrAP)

paws DUAL 3.r

SING.

Dan anllng merekaitu

mengham-oarkan

dua tangan -nya TM18:1 8

And dog (S) 3'd

PLUR,extending(AP)

two paws(o) SING.

19 t^ la'al|a -ka bakhi'un

nafsa l.^ Q18:6

SO perhaps 2"d SING./q\

destroy self 2'.] SING,(o)

mudah-

mudahan

engkau membi-nasakan

diri -mu TM 18:6

perhaps 2"d SING(s)

destroy self 2'd SING.(o)

= 'Perhaps you will destroy yourself'

Studia Islamiha, VoL. 9, No. 1' 2002

= '... and their dog was stretching out his Pavs.'

In this example, nxengbarnParkan renders the Arabic active Pafti-

ciple bksitr,t'iry. Active participles, although taking the normal noun

case endings, nevertheless fetain a verbal function rn Arabic by taking

a subject in nominative case and ^ny

obiect if it occurs in accusative

case. The word order in such Arabic sentences is SVO' Thus zneN-

verbs being active and transitive in Literary Malay represented the

obvious way of rendering the active particiPle in Arabic' Here again

the Arabic was the conditionin g f^ctor in the manner of use of a

I(itab Malay form.Example 19 shows another incidence of this usage of meN-:

Peter G. Riddell

Conclusion\ff/e have seen that a literal technique of translation adopted by

'Abd al-Ra'uf in producing Tarjum,in al-Mustafid has resulted in theMalay rendering being significantly influenced by the syntax of theArabic source text. This is clear from a perusal of examples 9-19,rvhich highlight the striking degree of resemblance berween the wordorder of the Qur'anic Arabic original sentences and the I(tab Malayrendered versions in TarjumAn al-Mustafid. The result, no doubt, wasthat Malay speakers who had little or no knowledge of Arabic wouldhave encountered inevitable difficulty in understanding and interpret-ing the text of the rendering in ICtab MaIay.

Such a style of 'religious' Malay is by no means limited in its use

to works composed during the 16'h and 1.7'h centuries. In the modernera, the Malay/Indonesian of Islamic religious texts, particularly oftranslations from Arabic, still has a tendency to reflect certain Arabicsyntactic and morphological features. In effect, I{itab Malay is aliveand well.

This attracts criticism from some modern Southeast Asian writersand critics who claim that the language of religious texts should ad-here to the syntactic norms of standard Indonesian/Malay. ThusMuhammad Radjab, in his autobiography entitled Semasa Kecil diKampung,.bewails the fact that he had to battle his way through such

a tedious style of Malay vrhen he was studying religious texts in an

Islamic school in the 1930s in the Minangkabau area o{ Sumatra(Radjab, 1950: 81). He describes the Indonesian/Malay language ofthese texts as follows:

'...why was the translation into Indonesian so long-winded and repetitive, .viththe vocabulary half Indonesian and half Atabic, and the gt^mm^t completelyArabic?8

Radjab cites the following as an example of the Arabised Malaywith which he had to familiarise himself:

'Bermula yang haLam, bagaimana rnuknya, yang dihatahan kahm ialah lafaz,yang tersusun, yang memberi faedah dan uadhak."

Somewhat later Oemar Bakry (1981: 58) wrote in a similady criti-cal vein of the language of religious books:

Studia klamika, VoL 9, No. 1, 2002

Literal Translation

'The saddest situation concerns the language of religious texts. Only vety fewcontain language which is cotrect and accurate... The language of most followsAtabic language structures. Only the vocabulary is Indonesian. The style of the

language, the wotd otdet, and the grammat is litde different ftom Arabic. It could

be called Indo-Arabic.""

It is of no comfort to such modern critics to know that most oftheir 17'h century Malay scholarly counterparts probably had even

gre^ter headaches trying to understand 'Abd al-Ra'ufs Qur'anic com-mentary. However to dismiss such a style of Malay as being inferior,poor language, ignores the fact that the authors of ICtab Malay texts,

such as 'Abd al-Ra'uf, belonged to a long line of translators of reli-gious literature from diverse faith traditions, who were motivatedby a number of very specific purposes. These were as follows:a) A wish to preserve the form of the source language as far as pos-

sible in the target language text in order to maximise the sacred-

ness of the rendered text;b) A wish to impart to readers the salient features of the sacred lan-

guage of revelation as well as the theological content of the origi-nal text;

c) A possible recognition that the 'translationese' resulting from lit-eral translation, such as Arabicized Malay, represented somethingof a status symbol in societies contemporaneous with the transla-

tion itself.

After our glimpse into certain features of I(tab Malay, the fol-lowing statement by Aminurrashid (1966: 15) represents a clarion call

for greater effort, rather than complaint, on the part of readers ofI{itab Malay texts:

'... it is necessary to study in detail the Malay language of religious texts in order

to tead them in such a way as to grasp the litetary meaning intended by the

religious scholars concerned.'r I

Studia kLamiba, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2002

Peter G. Riddell

Endnotes1. Winstedt's views are by no means unique to him. In fact, they point to a long-

tunning debate over the relative metits of particulat vatieties of Malay since the

early petiod of colonisation in the Malay world. Fot details of this debate, cf.

Hoffman 1979.2. Ol(ell also presents othei examples from earliet centuries, and argues for the

conservative nature of this literary genre, stating that "there is nothing to distin-guish a nissaya tenderingof 1.491 ftom one of 1910" (OKell 1965:187).

3. For a more detailed study of the morphology and syntax of four 17th centutyMalay works (Hikayat Sri Rama, Hikayat Indraputra, Hikayat Tanah Hitu,Hihayat Muharnmad Hanafiyah), cf, Zaini-Lajo.ebert 1983.

4. The numbet befote the colon refets to the page in Iskandat's 1958 edition, and the

second number refets to the MS page on which Iskandar's edition was based.

5. In discussing subject focus and object focus consttuctions, I am drawing upon the

work of Yohanni Johns (1995, forthcoming).6. The numbet befote the colon refets to the chapter of the Qur'an, and the second

number refers to the verse in focus.

7. The numbet before the colon tefers to the Qur'anic chapter being commentedupon, and the second numbet to the verse in focus.

8. The text in Indonesian is as follows: '... mmgapa babasa Indonesia terjemabannya

berbelit-belit dan berulang-ulang kata-hatanya setengdb Indonesia setengah Arab,dan susunannya Arab sama sekali?

9. His rendering of the above into everyday Indonesian is as follovrs; 'Kalimat ialah

susundn kata-kata yang dapat dipabamhan dan disengaja ftiengucaPhannya.'

10. The original text is as follows: 'Yang lebib mmyedihkan iakb bahasa buku'buku

agdma, Tidak berapa jumlabnya yang baik dan benar babasanya.'. Banyak

bahasanya nlenurut susunan babasa Arab. Perkataan-perkataan saja ydng babasa

Indonesia. Rasa bahasa, susunan halimat, tata babasanya tidak berapa bedanya

dengan babasa Arab. Jadi boleh dikatahan bahasa Indonesia'Arab.'

11. The otiginal text is as foilows: '... bahasa Mela.yu kitab'kitab ugama itu terpaksa

berguru untok rnernbacanya supaya hita fabarn maksud sdstera yang ditulis oleh

alim ulama itu.'

Studia klamika, Vol. 9, No. 1,2002

LiteralTranslation 25

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Peter G. Riddell is Director of tbe Centre for Iskmic Studies, LondonBible College, Brunel Unioersity, London.

Studia hlamika, Vol.9, No. 1,2002