KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17 — As the court drags its feet in addressing the “Allah” controversy after more than a year, the Catholic Church has reprinted a rare 17th-century Malay-Latin dictionary in what seems to be a silent bid to speed up its case.
The “Dictionarium Malaico-Latin and Latino-Malaicum” was first published in 1631 by the Vatican Press in Rome. Church officials say it is historical proof that its missionaries had played a key role in the exchange of knowledge and culture between Europe and Southeast Asia some 400 years ago.
Reverend Lawrence Andrew, who had worked for the past 11 years to reprint the dictionary, told The Malaysian Insider it was crucial to counter the mistaken belief that the spread of Christianity through local languages in Malaysia was a recent 20th-century phenomenon.
“It’s to say it’s been here for a long time... 400 years,” said the editor of the Catholic Church’s local newspaper, The Herald Weekly.
The Herald had challenged the Home Ministry for the right to use the word “Allah” to describe God in the Christian context and had won in a landmark ruling at the High Court on New Year’s Eve in 2009. But the paper is unable to use it as the ministry managed to get a stay pending its appeal.
The Court of Appeal in Putrajaya has yet to fix a hearing date for the case. Veteran lawyers have said there is little the church can do speed up the process as there are no rules on a time limit; adding it was not unusual for a case to be called years after being filed.
Andrew had submitted a copy of the dictionary as historical evidence to back the church’s suit after the ministry tendered several essays by Islamic scholars from the influential Institute of Islamic Understanding here supporting its case.
The priest had got the Holy See’s approval to reprint the dictionary 12 years ago but was only able to do so recently due to a lack of resources.
“There was the cost and also the technology now has made it much easier to clean up the pages to make it fit for print. It was very tedious work as the copy on microfilm was not clear,” the priest explained.
The reprint of the dual-language dictionary is said to be an exact replica.
Andrew said the medieval spelling of the Malay words may prove hard to read and understand for the modern person, but he had decided against updating the spelling and typeset “so people cannot say we modified it”. More here
Well folks what can I say....
A year back I wrote a series of Articles on the Allah Issue.....macam buat Phd siut.....
I found out things as part of my fardu kifayah to share with my readers for all of you to think constructively on the issue....
Bukan senang siut...gua sampai tak tidur malam....
Should I let this one go......
Just accept Pakiam's angle on the issue?
Most of you would know me by now.....
Gua tak pernah telan bulat bulat anything that I read......
I have this constant urge to find out a wee bit more....
So here goes.......
First question....
What is Pakiam trying to prove?
"Reverend Lawrence Andrew, who had worked for the past 11 years to reprint the dictionary, told The Malaysian Insider it was crucial to counter the mistaken belief that the spread of Christianity through local languages in Malaysia was a recent 20th-century phenomenon.
“It’s to say it’s been here for a long time... 400 years,” said the editor of the Catholic Church’s local newspaper, The Herald Weekly."
Is that it?
No need to reprint a latin Dictionary la brader.....
Use this instead.
What you are seeing above is Daniel Brouwerius's Book of Genesis in "Malay" originally published in 1662, the picture is the 1697 reprint edition....
Pakcik Makcik yang bijik mata dah barai check out below
So macha why wait 12 years to print the stupid dictionary? got extra 31 year vintage is it?
Its available in our UKM's Institute of Malay World and Civilisation (Alam dan Tamaddun Melayu)
You must be wondering why am I showing you this rite.....
Before we go on further let us recap some facts from my previous posts...
- Allah is a Proper Name for God go here
- Allah the Arabic Loan Word in Malay that has a specific religious connotation assigned to it creating a definable conceptual boundaries which requires proper understanding of its socio-historical origins and their semantic-cognitive properties to the Malay Muslims of Malaysia. go here
- The need to use "Allah" in Bible Translation as a means for Contextualising the Bible to the Muslim Targets go here
- The Allah in Marshden Raffels Malay Dictionary used by Munshi Abdullah go here
- The context of usage of the term Allah By Pre Christian Borneo Population go here
- The Arabic Bible usage of Al-IIlah instead of Allah go here
- The Religious Freedom concept which the Malaya Christian Council tried to embedded into our Malaysian Constitution during Reid Commission = Free Conversion and Propagation of Christianity to the Malays go here
Ok so now gua budget lu semua sudah baca all the above..kalau lu belum lu mesti lost in space as we go forward....pastu datang nak "exercise" you right in my comment section......
Now back to the document I provided above....
You'll notice that there is Deos, Alla, Allah and Allah Taala.......
and if you remember what Mashden said.....
One would ask.....if your God has a Name....is it Allah?
If not why use a Proper Name of An Islamic Diety?
Deos on the other hand is Portuguese ....
It denotes God go here
Before we go deeper into Daniel Brouwerius's Book of Genesis.....
We must build the connection with the Latin Dictionary Herald is trying to sell to us........the “Dictionarium Malaico-Latin and Latino-Malaicum”?
Gua pun cari la bagai nak rak.....
As we all know by now Dictionaries in those days were prepared primarily for the Translation of the Bible in Local Languages......every single one of them was done by Christians Missionaries....no surprise there....
So I asked myself...which Pok Salib prepared this one.......what language was is based upon ?
We also know that latin is not really a spoken language...so the "Malay" dictionary must be from another language...
Cari punye cari jumpa...la this site....
Casper Wittens menyusun kamus bahasa Melayu - Belanda yang kemudian diperbaiki oleh Sebastian Danckaerts dan diterbitkan oleh Gravenhaghe pada tahun 1623 M dan di Batavia pada tahun 1706 M. Kamus ini telah diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Latin oleh David Haex dan diterbitkan di Rom pada tahun 1631 M. go here
So it was a Dutch Translation to Latin........
He is none other than David Haex.....dude spend sometime in together with Casper Wiltens and Sebastian Danckaerts in Ambon........
First thing we should ask is what was his command of "Malay" for him to be able to translate it into Latin?
Above is what Marshden thinks of his work.......
The Translation is evidently the performance of a person unacquainted with the Malayan Language
Am I surprised........should we be?
These translators had a Primary Objective of Spreading the Gospel....
All of them were aligned to the Church.....
Lets look at Casper Wiltens and Sebastian Dankearts activities
So there you go folks......
VOC primary policy was to use Dutch their Official Language of the Bible.....
Tapi mamat mamat kat Ambon semua bingai and malas.......
They had to go local.....
And in the process a 'Dictionary" was created for this purpose
How sweet......
What if the Ambonese were good students?
So folks where do we go from here?
What is the link between Casper Wiltens, Sebastian Dankearts and the 1662 Breouweous Book of Genesis?
Below is an analysis of the lexicology of Genesis 1662 Version
Well you all must be wondering why Ambon of all the place....
The language looked damn strange....in comparison to our version of Bahasa Melayu
The Colonial Appropriation?
What the writer meant by appropriation is the "Possession and Manipulation of Malay" to achieve the intentions of the VOC
We should now ask besides economics what were VOC's objectives?
So people...what value do you think the Latin Dictionary would bring to Heralds case?
Is it to misdirect the Government and gain some news coverage?
By the way macha why u wanna kencing people about the Latin Dictionary....
Lu pinjam works of Protestant pastu mau claim Catholic origin..from Rome.....
lame.......
Technical Notes:
- A Book and Chapter in the History of Malay go here
- Dutch Language in Maluku under the VOC go here
- A Grammer of the Malayan Language go here
PS: Monkey wonders if the Government is aware of this?