Page 164 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

Words generally become loans in another language where there is no existing, local
term for a new concept. The loans from Austronesian to Non-Austronesian languages
therefore suggest the contact between cultures. For example, many of the Non-
Austronesian languages were hunter-gatherers, while the Austronesians had a form of
agriculture, and grew rice. The word for rice, nasi, is one such loanword appearing in the
Mapi Digul language.
Although there are occurences of words in Non-Austronesian languages becoming
loans in Austronesian languages, the direction of borrowing is mostly the other way, from
Austronesian to Non-Austronesian. There is only one loanword from a non-Austronesian
language to Austronesian. It is raimuna which was borrowed as alternative term for the
word jamboree, as in scouting. The English loan jamboree appears in Indonesian, the
Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI) as ‘jam.bo.re [n] pertemuan besar para pramuka’
a large scout meeting. The loanword raimuna has found its way into the KBBI with the
following definition, ‘rai.mu.na [n] pertemuan atau kegiatan pramuka, berupa per- kemahan
besar untuk tingkat penegak dan pandega’ scout meetings or activities, in the form of a
large camp for scout leaders and scouts aged 21-25 years.
The examples of loanwords from Austronesian to Non-Austronesian languages are
found in the semantic fields of (a) Family Relationships, (b) Clothing, (c) Metals, (d) Animals,
(e) Numerals, (f) Plants, (g) Tools, and (h) Other. However, they are not restricted to these
as there were cultural differences in other areas such as architecture, dance, clothing, and
cooking. The presence of loanwords in these areas also suggests that these were probably
innovations in Non-Austronesian culture.

Conclusion

Linguistic analysis of the languages of Indonesia and the Southwest Pacific areas reveals
that the very large number of languages found there belong to either the Austronesian
language family or one of a number of other, as yet indeterminate, language families
that for convenience are amalgamated and referred to either as Papuan, suggesting
geography and cultures, or Non-Austronesian, referring to the still inconclusive status of
categorization of languages into a number of different language families.
The term Melanesia is used with reference to a geographical area, a cultural area, or a
modern political grouping. However, there is nothing in the linguistic evidence, whether
from historical linguistics or language typology studies that suggests that the countries
which refer to themselves as Melanesian, namely Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea,

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