COMPLETION REPORT
Japanese Contribution in Malay Lexicography
Dr. Karim Bin Harun
Associate Professor
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Miyatake was one of the Japanese scholars who not only produced books about Malay literature but also a MalayJapanese dictionary as well, i.e. The New Concise Malay Dictionary (1942) and Kamoes Bahasa Merajoe-Nippon
Jang Lengkap (1943). The dictionary compiled by Miyatake had a great impact on the development of Malay,
especially in dictionary making. He had a very clear method in compiling his dictionary. For his dictionary he notonly made use of the entries and the definitions from the existing Malay dictionaries but he also used .many
contemporary sources, such as Malay newspapers and magazines published in Indonesia during that time he waspreparing his dictionary. He also used his experience during his visit to Celebes and Java to make his dictionary
different from the others.
Our research found that a large portion of The New Concise Malay Dictionary (1942) was extracted fromWilkinson’s (1908) dictionary. Although the dictionary drew on Wilkinson (1908), Miyatake selected both entriesand definitions for his concise dictionary. Moreover, Miyatake had his own vision of Malay. He added
morphological forms and sometimes expanded definitions. In Wilkinson, the morphological aspect was notdiscussed. The discussion of morphological aspect shows that Miyatake realized the Malay word formation can bedone through prefixation and reduplication.
Miyatake dictionary different from other Malay- Japanese dictionaries of the era, i,e. Ochi (1923), Touchi, G(1943) and Taketomi (1942). In his dictionary, he took not only Malay lexical used in Malay Peninsular but also
Malay lexical used in Indonesia as well. Thus his dictionary consists of Malay and Indonesian entries. Miyatake
also can differentiate Malay words from the others languages of the Malay world. Thus his dictionary solely
contained a Malay and Indonesian lexical items. When we compare the Miyatake dictionary with other MalayJapanese dictionary compiled by the Japanese, we found that Miyatake had a very wide knowledge about Malay.
We also found evidence of the impact of the orthography reform in Miyatake (1942). The Japanese language usedin this 1942 dictionary is quite different and difficult to understand for most young Japanese people today. Veryfew young Japanese can read many of kanji definitions in Miyatake (1942).
When we compared both Miyatake dictionary, The New Concise Malay Dictionary (1942) and Kamoes Bahasa
Merajoe-Nippon Jang Lengkap (1943), we found that the latter seems like a translation from Wilkinson dictionary(1932) and that Miyatake’s contribution seems to have been minimal since it was compiled by a group of editors.
We had predicted that in The New Concise Malay Dictionary (1942), Miyatake contribution was great because thedictionary was widely used by the Japanese army in Indonesia. And this was reconfirmed because we could see hisunique contributions, as noted above, in vocabulary choices, and expended morphological examples. Thisdictionary is the premier dictionary in the evolving Malay-Japanese lexicographic tradition. This contribution to
the global field of Malay studies reflects his unique vision. But at the same time the Miyatake (1942) dictionary
was compiled meticulously in the then-contemporary Malay dictionary tradition.

Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)

June 27, 2016, Doshisha University, Japan, AAS-in-Asia Conference, Exploring medical terminology
in Miyatake’s Malay-Japanese dictionary (1942), Prof. Emeritus James T. Collins.
February 28, 2017, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Seminar “Kamus Masamichi Miyatake dan
Perkamusan Melayu” Kamus Miyatake: Perbandingan dengan kamus Wilkinson (Miyatake’s
Dictionary : A comparison with Wilkinson Dictionary), Associate Prof. Dr. Karim Harun (Masamichi
Miyatake Dictionary’s and Malay Lexicography Seminar)
February 28, 2017, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Seminar “Kamus Masamichi Miyatake dan
Perkamusan Melayu”, Terminologi Perubatan dalam Kamus Miyatake, (Medical terminology inMiyatake’s Dictionary) Prof. Emeritus James T. Collins (Masamichi Miyatake Dictionary’s and MalayLexicography Seminar)
February 28, 2017, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Seminar ‘Kamus Masamichi Miyatake dan
Perkamusan Melayu,” Pemandangan Nusantara dari Nara menerusi Projek Perkamusan Miyatake(The scenery of Nusantara through the Miyatake Dictionary project) , Associate Prof Dr. Toru Ueda
(Masamichi Miyatake Dictionary’s and Malay Lexicography Seminar)
Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
1. PERTANIKA Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 2018, Exploring medical terminology inMiyatake’s Malay-Japanese Dictionary (1942), James T. Collins, Karim Harun, Toru Ueda
2. GEMA on-line, 2018, Kamus Miyatake (1942) : Perspektif mikro dan makro, Karim Harun, James T.
Collins, Toru Ueda
3. The Setsudai Review of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2018, Catatan mengenai Perkamusan Seido
Miyatake, Toru Ueda, James T. Collins and Karim Harun,
Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)
1. Institut Terjemahan Buku Negara Malaysia (Malaysian National Institue of Book and Translation), 2018,Bahasa Melayu Pertengahan Abad ke-20: Kamus Miyatake, Karim Harun, James T. Collins, Toru Ueda