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The original was posted on /r/indonesian by /u/Hillwalker71 on 2023-07-17 02:32:31.
As someone who’s interested in the origin of the words that they learn, this one caught my eye.
According to Wiktionary, lumba-lumba (‘dolphin’) is a reduplication of lumba/lomba (‘race; a running competition’), which is derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *lumbəq.
In other examples of kata ganda (specifically, nouns) that I’ve come across, there seems to be a conceptual link between the singular word and the reduplicated one. For example:
- Abu (‘ash’) > abu-abu (‘grey’)
- Langit (‘sky’) > langit-langit (‘roof; ceiling’)
- Surat (‘letter’) > surat-surat (‘paperwork’)
What’s the conceptual link between running competitions and dolphins? Are there any other strange examples like this that you know of?
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