Symbols for ‘Hill’ and ‘Mountain’ in Malaysian Indigenous Languages
Abstract
This paper contains a study of symbols which represent the objects hill and mountain, with data taken from 53 Malaysian languages and dialects over several decades. The objectives include constructing the ontology of the semantics of the words that represent the names for these objects, and to expose the connection between language and culture in these names. The theory I apply in the analysis is the theory of the sign. In Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory, the sign is the language symbol, as the union of the signifier and the signified. I also apply Roland Barthes’ application of Saussure’s theory with modification to suit non-language symbols; here the sign is the object.
From the analysis, the results present a picture of processes of the developments of the semantics and the phylogenetics of the words that refer to the objects, that is, the toponyms. From the anthropological aspect of the study, I argue that, while the meaning differences of the objects taken to be hill and mountain in English are shown through their height and size, this is not the case in the Malay language. In the Malay language, while physical features of these objects are recognized by society, the cultural and psychological factors seem to override the physical ones to indicate a mountain as different from a hill.
Keywords: Sign, semantics, ontology, phylogenetics, linguistics, culture, linguistic anthropology