Doing

Once upon a time, back when I was at primary school, we were taught that verbs were 'doing words'. This was contrasted with nouns, which were called 'naming words'. The interesting thing, though, is how we think about 'doing', and how different languages put those concepts in their words.

In English, as in other Euraopean languages, we make a big deal about time in relationship to 'doing'. When using verbs, the word changes to show time. In Indonesian and Malay, time is not something that verbs have to worry themselves about. That work is done by other words. But verbs have other considerations. The complexity of 'doing' in Indonesian-Malay has more to do with relationships between things and people, and a sense of interaction, proximity and distance. This is conveyed by affixes-bits added on to the basic root word.

June 21, 2016