Malay Translations Research Articles

The Difference of Illumination Characteristics of the Sharaf al-Anām in British Library and Leiden University Library

Sḥaraf al-Anām is a prominent mawlīd text traditionally recited during the commemoration of Prophet Muhammad’s birth. This text enjoys widespread composition and utilization across the Muslim world, including Southeast Asia. The manuscript of Sḥaraf al-Anām is typically adorned with decorative ornaments encircling the text. This study investigates the ornamental illumination of two Sḥaraf al-Anām manuscripts housed in the EAP British Library and the Digital Collections of Leiden University Libraries. The former manuscript originates from Sri Lanka, while the provenance of the latter remains unidentified. Both manuscripts present Arabic text with interlinear Malay translations and are aesthetically decorated with diverse styles and patterns. The study analyzed the structural features, ornamental patterns and color designs of the illuminations in these manuscripts. It further explores the potential influences that may have contributed to the presence of such illuminations. This study found notable distinction as observed in the illumination characteristics between the Sḥaraf al-Anām in the EAP British Library collection and that in the Digital Collection of Leiden University Libraries. The comparison suggests that factors such as the provenance of the manuscripts, the artistic quality of the illuminator and the inherent creativity in the work may have contributed to this distinction. This study underscores the importance of these factors in understanding the diversity and richness of manuscript illumination in the Muslim world.

On ‘hanging meaning’ and its transmission. Tracing a didactic poem from Aceh

Drawing on a case study of an Arabic poem and two versions of its interlinear Malay translation, the paper speculates on the involvement of oral practices in the transmission of interlinear texts. The translations are found in two manuscripts from Aceh (EAP329/1/11, Endangered Archives, 18th c., and ML 341, Jakarta, late 19th c.), between the lines of a didactic verse dealing with the duties of a good Muslim student. While the Arabic text of the poem seems to have been reproduced through copying from a written source, the transmission history of its Malay translations appears to be more complicated. Juxtaposing the two versions of interlinear translation reveals that they are too similar to be unrelated and, at the same time, too different for the differences to result from corruption in the process of recopying. The paper argues that the interlinear text in the manuscripts under discussion has gone through both written and oral transmission—likely in the classroom settings, with a teacher dictating the translation looking into a written copy, but feeling free to slightly modify or complement it during the dictation.

Translation norms for Malay and English words: The effects of word class, semantic variability, lexical characteristics, and language proficiency on translation.

Translation equivalents are widely used in bilingual research concerning word processing (e.g., Eddington & Tokowicz, 2013; Jouravlev & Jared, 2020) and second-language vocabulary learning (e.g., Bracken et al., 2017; Degani et al., 2014). Although translation norms exist in several languages, to date there are no Malay-English translation norms. This study presents the first Malay-English translation norms collected with highly proficient Malay-English bilinguals. Furthermore, the study investigates the impact of lexical characteristics on translation ambiguity. The forward translation (FT) task (N = 30) collected English translations for 1004 Malay words selected from the Malay Lexicon Project (Yap et al., 2010), and subsequently the backward translation (BT) task (N = 30) gathered Malay translations for 845 English words obtained from the FT phase. The data revealed a high prevalence of translation ambiguity in both translation directions. Specifically, verbs, adjectives, and class-ambiguous words were more translation-ambiguous than nouns. Furthermore, within-language semantic variability and word length were positively correlated with translation ambiguity, whereas word frequency only correlated with translation ambiguity in FT. Word length and word frequency of the source words and their translations were positively correlated. Intriguingly, only in FT were bilinguals with higher Malay proficiency more likely to provide accurate and dominant translations for the Malay words. These findings contrast with those reported in translation norming studies involving other language pairs. The translation norms provide a useful resource for bilingual language studies involving Malay-English bilinguals.

The Communist Manifesto in Indonesia

This article offers a new perspective on the reception of Marxism in Indonesia by examining the first Malay translations of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1923 and 1925. These translations, made from Dutch and German source texts, ‘domesticated’ the Manifesto by exchanging certain European terms for vernacular ones with greater resonance in the Indonesian context. They also introduced a wider Indonesian audience to Marxist class concepts, which offered a new international way of conceptualising political resistance, and terms from European philosophy and history. In the process, they broke down the barriers built up by Dutch colonial authorities to keep radical European political texts away from vernacular languages. After the failed communist uprisings of 1926–27, the increasingly intense colonial policing regime stifled further dissemination of the Manifesto, but translations of Marx and Engels’ text received a new lease of life during the Indonesian Revolution (1945–49) and in the postwar decades. The Communist Manifesto was suppressed once more under the anti-communist New Order regime which came to power in 1966 and reconstructed the barrier between radical European political thought and the Indonesian language that had been erected by the Dutch.

The Translation for al-Kawkab in Hadith from al-Ṣaḥīḥayn: An Analysis

The word al-kawkab (plural; al-kawākib) is among the celestial objects mentioned in the prophetic hadith. However, the practice of simply construing the word from the text as ‘the planet’ may lead to anachronism. To fill such a gap in defining the word al-kawkab in hadith, this study explores the meaning of the word, which has a deep-rooted association with the Arabic culture dated back to the 7th century CE. Through a qualitative design, this study employs the use of thematic analysis to explore the meaning of the words al-kawkab or al-kawākib in al-Ṣaḥīḥayn (the two Authentic Books of Hadith). First, the Malay translations of the words in available scholarly publications are identified because they are reliable for predominantly Muslim readers in Malaysia. In grasping the intricate contents and facts underlying the hadith on al-kawkab, this study relies on the references in hadith, astronomy, language, history, Quranic exegesis, and pre-Islamic poetries. Ultimately, this study finds that the scholarly publications that contribute to defining al-kawkab in hadith, do not provide proper translation. Upon delving into the details of the word in al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, this study learns that al-kawkab constitutes of six meanings. Predictably, the usage of the word in hadith indicates that the Ancient Arabs considered al-kawkab could mean several types of luminous celestial objects and does not necessarily mean ‘planet’ as per modern-day comprehension. Hence, this study recommends the correct translation of the word al-kawkab or al-kawākib in hadith, which fulfills the exact meaning derived from the occasion of each narration.

Translating Malay Compounds into Arabic Based on Dynamic Theory and Arabization Method

This study aims at making possible the effective use of machine translation (MT) in interpreting the Malay compounds into Arabic ones following the structure and Arabic style. The necessity of this study arises on account of the weakness of translation quality using online MT and the lack of suitable methods to structure the compounds from the Malay language into Arabic. There are three objectives of this study which are to collect the results of Malay compound translations using online MT into Arabic, analyze the results of the compound translations, and suggest compound translation methods based on dynamic theory and Arabization method. The study uses three online MT as instruments to translate: Google Translate, Microsoft Bing Translator, and Yandex Translator. This qualitative study employs a descriptive approach and analysis method in collecting information and analyzing data. The study focuses on 15 Malay compounds which are later categorized into school names, hospital names, and clinics. The findings of translation have been drawn using the next three MTs and analyzed at three main level: namely grammar level, phonetics and phonology level, and dynamic translation level. From this analysis, 4 out of 15 compound nouns translations data into Arabic are categorized as poor translations for not approaching the structure and Arabic style. In the final stages, the results of the translation collected are formulated and suggested alternative translations based on dynamic theory and methods of Arabization and compound restructuring formula in Arabic. Through this process, the translation results of the compounds can be categorized as translations that can meet the structure and style of the Arabic language. The compound translation model can be proposed as a new translation method for Arabic language users, especially the Arabic translators and students both at school and higher education.

Manga Translation and Censorship Issues in Malaysia

In manga translation, when original image and written representations are regarded as inappropriate content to the target readers’ socio-cultural context, censorship is imposed. Nevertheless, research on censorship in manga translation in Malaysia has not been given due attention. Previous studies show that self-censorship influences translation, but it is not examined within the scope of manga translation. As such, the objective of this study is to examine the censorship practices in manga translation in Malaysia. This study adopts a qualitative content analysis approach to analyse six Malay translations and their respective source texts based on the publishing guideline of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 [Act 301] and translation procedures proposed by Klaus Kaindl. The analysis shows that the censorship practice in manga translation is a combination of institutional and self-censorship. In institutional censorship, the translation procedures of detraction, addition, substitution, deletion and couplets are used, while in self-censorship, the process is involves substitution, deletion and addition. The current study recommends the adoption of institutional censorship procedures as guidelines in handling sensitive representations and a review of the self-censorship procedures to ensure faithful translations.

The Translation of Name Labels in Spider-Man Comics

This paper investigates the translation of address terms or name labels in comics from English to Malay. The two aims of this study are: (i) to identify the main translation strategies used in the target text regarding Baker's (1992) typology of translation strategies and (ii) to discuss how effectively the source author’s name labels are transposed in Malay by using Eugene Nida’s (1964: 182) basic principles of "the general efficiency of the communication process" and "comprehension of intent" as a yardstick. The data comprises 187 name labels identified in 14 series of the Spider-Man comics and their Malay counterparts. The findings revealed that the three most frequently used strategies are paraphrasing by using related words followed by omissions of name labels and translating by using less expressive or neutral words. With regard to the efficacy of the Malay translations in conveying the semantic robustness of the English name labels, it was found that the translator has prioritized a transparent translation to achieve easy comprehensibility for the target reader over a faithful preservation of the author's style and the finer nuances expressed by the name labels.

From ‘Ratcatraz Prison’ to ‘Penjara Pudutikus’: Lexical Creativity in Children’s Literature and its Translation into Malay

Lexical creativity is one of the ways through which authors of children’s literature shape their stories, entertain children and build their identity and style. In spite of their uniqueness, creative lexical items are often replaced with more common words in translation, a phenomenon described through the law of growing standardisation hypothesis. In view of the importance of creative lexical items in children’s literature, there is a need to explore how creativity is transferred in the process of translation. This study is carried out to examine the translation of lexical creativity in children’s literature from English to Malay. More specifically, the aims of the study are to identify the types of creative lexical items in children’s literature in English and to determine how translators transfer creativity from English into Malay. The study also aims to determine whether the hypothesis of the law of growing standardisation applies in the context of the translation of children’s literature from English into Malay. The study employs a corpus-based model for research on the translation of creative lexical items. Corpus analysis tools are used to identify different forms of creative lexical items and to identify the translations for these items. Based on the analysis, five types of creative lexical items are identified; many, however, are replaced with common words when translated into Malay, resulting in the loss of unique features of the original works. It is, however, also found that translators compensate for some of these losses by introducing other elements in the Malay translations.

Qur’anic Readings and Malay Translations in 18th-Century Banten Qur’ans A.51 and W.277

ABSTRACT This article examines two copies of the Qur’an from 18th-century Banten held in the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia, A.51 and W.277, that contain interlinear Malay translations, focusing on two aspects, i.e. Qur’anic readings and Malay translations, to reveal Qur’anic pedagogical practices in the region. This article suggests that differences in the way a Qur’anic reading is used for the writing of the Qur’an guide us to understand the users and their levels of acquired skills and knowledge. In this regard, the Qur’an A.51 was possibly used for those who gained high level skills in Qur’anic recitation, while the Qur’an W.277 was possibly made for students at basic levels or ordinary Muslims. Meanwhile, the examination of their Malay translations reveals that both present a different style in rendering, compared to those in two 17th-century Malay commentaries (i.e. the Cambridge manuscript Or. Ii.6.45 and the Tarjumān) and the Jalālayn, a well known work on Qur’anic exegesis in the Muslim world. In a broader context, this article affirms the existence of Malay translations in the Qur’ans A.51 and W.277 as a proof for the continuation of Malay exegetical activities in 18th century after the composition of the Tarjumān in the late 17th century.

HEAT MAPS AND SCAN PATHS: QUALITATIVE EYE-TRACKING EVIDENCE ON HOW THE QUR’AN IS MEMORIZED THROUGH READING

The process of memorizing the Qur’an typically takes place through reading its printed version (mus’haf). The Qur’an is read word by word so that the process of recalling the memorized verses or chapters is done accurately and fluently. Memorizing the Qur’an may be a great challenge to non-Arabic speakers because of their lack of knowledge in the Arabic vocabulary and grammar; yet more and more non-Arabic speakers continue to memorize the Qur’an for various reasons. In order to scientifically investigate how non-Arabic speakers memorize the Qur’an, a reading experiment was conducted to achieve this aim. Sixty-four (21 Male, 43 Female) native speakers of Malay who have memorized a portion of the Qur’an (10 juzu’ and below) participated in this experiment. Using the Tobii TX300 eye-tracking machine, participants’ eye movements, as they read to memorize four verses of the Qur’an (two with and two without Malay translations), were tracked, and their gaze plots were analysed qualitatively (via heat maps and scan paths). Results show evidence that Malay non-Arabic speakers’ act of reading the Qur’an to memorize it went beyond what is usually known as “cramming”; instead, the process involved finding the meaning of unknown words, so that the process of recalling the memorized verses can be done accurately and fluently.
 
 Keywords: Cognitive processes, eye movements, memorization, psycholinguistics, Qur’an
 
 Cited as: Salehuddin, K., Shahimin, M. M., Sulaiman, M. Z., & Md Zolkapli, R. B. (2019). Heat maps and scan paths: Qualitative eye tracking evidence on how the Qur’an is memorized through reading. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 4(2), 318-334. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol4iss2pp318-334

China’s cultural diplomacy in Malaysia during Najib Razak’s premiership

This article aims to provide an analysis of China’s cultural diplomacy (CCD) in Malaysia in the latter years of the premiership of Najib Razak (2015-2018). It intends to reflect on the efforts China has been exerting in order to increase its soft power in the Southeast Asian nation. The authors have identified and analyzed four major fields of CCD: the activities of two Confucius Institutes; the first overseas campus of a renowned Chinese university; invocations of shared history, embodied mainly by the figure of the legendary admiral-eunuch Zheng He, regularly commemorated as China’s historic envoy of peace; and Malay translations of classical Chinese novels. The article’s findings reveal an intricate pattern of networks involving various actors, both Chinese and Malaysian, state, semi-state, and non-state, pursuing their own particular interests, which tend to converge and overlap with the aims of Chinese cultural diplomacy. The implementation of CCD has also been formed by the local political and societal structures: a) a ‘special’ relation between Razak’s cabinet and the PRC leadership, revolving around party-based diplomacy and intensive economic cooperation especially between 2015 and May 2018; b) the presence of a large Chinese community, which provides opportunities and, at the same time, creates limitations for the China´s cultural diplomacy practice in Malaysia.

THE REVIEW OF THE WORDS ADNA AL-ARD AND AL-‘ANKABUT IN MALAY TRANSLATION OF HOLY QURAN: ANALYSIS GUIDED BY SCIENCE-ORIENTED EXEGESIS METHODOLOGY

The idea for the translation of the meaning of the Holy Quran in Malay Archipelago had appeared since the middle of 17th century. However, some problems in the translation of its meaning had resulted in a non-accurate translation of Quranic words or verses. A major factor contributing to this problem is the limited skills among the translators in the various fields and topics covered in Quran. Thus, a Review Committee for the Translation of the Meaning of Al-Quran consisting of experts in various field of knowledge related to Quran such as Arabic language, the target language, Quran interpretation and other disciplines such as history, geography, chemistry, biology, medicine and others that have been proposed. This article analyses two Malay translations of Holy Quran; Tafsir Pimpinan ar-Rahman and Tafsir Quran Karim guided by science-oriented exegesis (tafsir ‘ilmi) to find out whether the translation of meaning matches modern scientific facts. The accurate translation of the verse will then be proposed. The result revealed limitation in the translation of the meaning for the word adna Al-Ard to “nearest place”, while the word has various meaning. With regard to the interpretation of the mufassir and modern science fact, the suggested meaning for the word adna Al-Ard is supposed to be “the nearest place with lowest altitude”. Cite as: Hilmi, A.B.A., Mohd Yusoff, Z., Amir, S., & Zakaria, Z. (2017). The review of the words adna al-ard and al-‘ankabut in Malay translation of holy Quran: Analysis guided by science-oriented exegesis methodology. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 2(1), 146-158.

‘A Malay knight speaks the white man’s tongue’

ABSTRACTSasterawan Negara Professor Emeritus Muhammad Haji Salleh (b.1942) is a major Malay poet and literary scholar. Mainly educated in English and writing his early poetry largely in that language, he made a decision during his late twenties to write his further poetry only in Malay. His poetry now exists in English, Malay, a small number of Malay translations of his own works first published in English, and a much larger number of his own English translations of works that were first published in Malay. His scholarship has focused on the aesthetics of the classical Malay literary tradition, and he has recently published an English translation of the epic, the Hikayat Hang Tuah. This article is based on Anthony Pym’s proposal that ‘the central object’ of translation history should be ‘the human translator’ (1998: ix). It will study Muhammad’s development as a bilingual scholar, poet, translator and self-translator, working within specific literary and academic fields. As a translator, Muhammad has moved from a ‘formal’, literal, style of translation to a freer, more ‘dynamic’, style. Muhammad’s translations of his own poetry are freer in form but strict in the translation of content. His translation of the classical epic, the Hikayat Hang Tuah, follows the original patterns of phrasing but is free in its use of extended paraphrase and a mock-medieval English rhetoric.

Textual Exegesis of Malay Translations of Arabic Hadith Text as ToolsTeaching in Social and Religious

This article identifies that in social and religious discourse in Malaysia the use of Hadith texts (tradition meaning a report of the teachings, deeds and sayings of Mohamad p.b.u.h) serves social and political as well as religious practical teaching. It also identifies that the development of the Hadith in Malaysia and its significance for Malay Muslims was signified by several issues raised by Malay religious scholars. This includes the consciousness and critique of Malay Muslims on the misconduct in their lives, as well as the national awakening particularly since the introduction into Malaysia of the twentieth century ‘reformist’ movement, serious polemics have arisen among Malay scholars between Youth Group (Kaum Muda) and Old Group (Kaum Tua).

Conrad and the Formation of National Identity: The Malay Translations of Gaspar Ruiz and Almayer's Folly

Despite the central importance of the Malay Archipelago for Conrad's maritime career and literary oeuvre, the translation and reception of his writings in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have received no critical attention. After summarizing Conrad's recorded views on the principles of effective translation, this essay offers a detailed examination of Rustam A. Sani's translation of Gaspar Ruiz and Almayer's Folly into Malay in the mid-1960s. Situating them in relation to Lawrence Venutti's theories of translation and nationalism, it connects both texts to Sani's involvement with the Malaysian language movement. Through close comparison of translation and original, this essay shows how Sani's methodology was influenced by contemporary political efforts to construct a modern national identity.

Testing the Understanding of Pictorial Spatial Relationships using the Portuguese and Malay Languages

ABSTRACT Two different experiments were carried out using factor analysis to investigate the ability structure underlying a test of the understanding of three‐dimensional relationships portrayed in diagrams of frameworks. In Experiment I, Portuguese and Malay translations of the test revealed factors associated respectively with those items testing the understanding of vertical, horizontal and diagonal displacements. Experiment II used a different version of the Portuguese test to demonstrate that the factors separating the items with horizontal and vertical displacements arise from spatial, as opposed to linguistic, effects. It also demonstrated that the understanding of diagonal displacements across the outer surfaces of a framework is factorially similar to the understanding of diagonal displacements across the body of the whole framework.

Old Malay Legal Digests and Malay Customary Law

Digests of law collected from all the races of the Malay archipelago fill many printed volumes. In the Malay peninsula they are of three main types. There are digests and tribal sayings that embody the mild indigenous matriarchal law of agricultural clans, the 'adat perpateh or Law of Prime Ministers, found among the Minangkabaus of Sumatra and their colonists in Negri Sembilan. There are digests of patriarchal law deterrent to criminals, the 'adat Temenggong or Law of the Minister for War and Police, evolved for the mixed population of ports, law introduced largely from India along with commerce by traders and adventurers, at first Hindu and later Muslim. (This second type of law may be further divided into general digests of constitutional criminal and civil; law, full of relics of indigenous custom and borrowings from the period of Hindu influence but modelled on text-books of Muslim canon law and containing many of its provisions; secondly, digests of port rules adopted by countries like Acheh and Kedah from regulations of the kind India knew from the days of Chandra Gupta to the time of the Great Moguls; and, thirdly, digests of maritime law compiled, it is said, for Bugis trading vessels.) The last of the main types requires no comment, being Malay translations of orthodox Muslim works of the school of Shafi'i, especially treatises on the law of marriage, divorce, and the legitimacy of children, the only branch of Muslim canon law that Malays have adopted practically unchanged.