tidak vs bukan

[roger.keays]

Hi there,

I'm just learning Behasa Melayu, and am not really buying the common explanation of where to use bukan and where to use tidak. Most sources I have found (e.g. http://pgoh13.free.fr/l51bukan.php) say that bukan is used with nouns and tidak with verbs and adjectives. I don't understand what negating a noun means, so this caused a bit of an explosion in my brain.

Well, I came up with my own hypothesis:
* bukan and tidak are both adverbs meaning 'not'
* bukan is used exclusively with the verb 'to be'
* tidak is used with all other verbs and adjectives

The thing is that the verb 'to be' is not usually expressed in a Malay sentence, so it looks as though bukan is coupling with the noun (which would explain the common understanding):

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 Saya  bukan   guru
 I     not     teacher
 I (am not)  a teacher


whereas:

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 Saya  tak gemuk
 I     not fat
 I am (not fat)


My Malaysian girlfriend, Michelle (v. pretty!) tells me that 'Saya bukan gemuk' is also correct:

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 Saya  bukan gemuk
 I     not   fat
 I (am not)  fat


So far, the hypothesis holds. A more complex example from the link above was:

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 Dia bukan bodoh,  tapi malas
 He  not   stupid, but  lazy
 He (is not) stupid, but lazy

 *Dia    tak bodoh,   tapi mala
  He     not stupid,  but lazy
 ?He is (not stupid), but lazy


Here, you must use bukan. My thoughts is that the 'but' somehow relates directly to the verb which is why I have put a ? on the english translation of the tak form of the sentence.

In english it can be made more clear that the 'not' modifies the verb by using a contraction:

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 He isn't stupid, but lazy


Also, if you add some more adjectives you see that the not must go with the verb:

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  He isn't stupid or distracted, but lazy
 *He is not stupid or not distracted, but lazy
  He is not stupid and not distracted, but lazy


So it appears to me that our choice of contractions affects how and where we can use 'not'. For the case in question, I believe 'not' can only go with the verb 'to be', so we must use 'bukan'.

Am I raving?

Interestingly, when I was chatting with Michelle in English, I used an imperitive sentence "no bread', meaning '(you cannot eat) bread'. I asked her to translate into Malay, but she said there is no direct translation:

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 no     bread
 *bukan roti
 *tidak roti


You would have to say 'bread is not allowed' in full (sorry, didn't get her native translation for that), but I think that is more a case of what sort of imperitives are allowed in Malay.

Roger

[polar]

roger.keays, interesting point you have there. Being native speaker, it didn't strike me at all that bukan/tidak could cause such brain explosion

Here's some examples in current use:

No,no, no! I am not Napoleon!
Bukan, bukan, bukan! Aku bukan Napoleon.

Tidakkah engkau mengerti makna persahabatan.
Don't you understand the meaning of friendship?

Bukan itu yang aku minta, tapi yang ini.
That's not what I asked for, but this (one).

Tidak mengapa asalkan awak bahagia.
It's alright as long as you are happy.

Tidak ada orang yang boleh hidup selesa di bulan. Bukan ada oksigen seperti di bumi
No human being can live comfortably on the moon. There's no oxygen like we have here.

I can't clarify it in grammatical terms, all of which I had forgotten. Hope that helps

[roger.keays]

Hi polar, thanks for the reply and those examples... they all fit the pattern! bukan goes with the verb to be (is, am, was, are, will be etc..), tidak with everything else:

bukan examples (in English)
I am not Napolean!
That is not what I asked for...
There is no oxygen like we have here.

tidak examples (in English)
Do not you understand the meaning of friendship?
Human beings can not live on the moon.

I modified the tidak examples slightly to make it more clear which verb the not modifies.

Roger

[0stsee]

I just posted the same question in the Indonesian forum, a while ago..

If only I had checked the Malay forum earlier.

I'd say Indonesian and Malay forum can be merged, since they're basically the same language, anyway.


Mark

[Umarzuki]

Tidak ada orang yang boleh hidup selesa di bulan. Bukan ada oksigen seperti di bumi

Biasanya dalam perbualan; tiada manusia yang boleh hidup di bulan, bukannya ada oksigen seperti di bumi.

Mungkin saja aku salah sebab aku bukannya pelajar jurusan bahasa

Tapi bahasa pekannya (slang); tak ada manusia boleh hidup kat bulan. Bukan ada oksigen macam kat bumi.

Nampak persamaan dan perbezaan dengan contoh polar?

[jerantutferry]

While we are on the subject, isn't it interesting to note that there is no direct substitution in Malay for the word 'no'? We have bukan, tidak, tak, tiada which can mean not, negative, un-, etc but not directly no.

There is ya for yes but not no. I don't think 'tidak' means no entirely, it's more 'not' than 'no'. There may be instances where 'tidak' means no in the context of it being used. But the Malay equivalent of the English no, Russian нет, Uzbek йўқ, French non escapes me.

I think it explains the whole cultural background. A Malay (or any other Malayo-Polynesian) will never say no because it is impolite to do so. I had a businessman friend who went back and forth to Jakarta 7 times before he realized that his proposal was rejected the first time around. They never said no though!

There was case in Perak, Malaysia several years ago when an Orang Asli village was buried in a landslide. After being rescued an Orang Asli man said he lost his wife. When asked what her name was he was stumped. She did have a name but apparently it is rude to address somebody by their name in his culture, so he didn't know what it was because he never used it.

Does this explanation help in any way? I might have digressed a bit

[0stsee]

Hi Jerantutferry!
I noticed that "no(t)" can be translated into tidak and bukan, depending on the context.

[vema123]

Bukan is used for NOUNS while 'tidak' is used for verbs..

I've got this from
http://indonesianlanguage.net/learn-bahasa

[mubtadi]

I think this not may help in this discussion:

Bukan dan Tidak
i. Kata bukan dan tidak tergolong
dalam kelas kata nafi untuk
membentuk ayat nafi.
ii. Kata bukan tidak boleh digunakan
apabila frasa adjektif atau frasa
kerja menjadi predikat ayat.
iii. Kata tidak pula tidak boleh diguna-
kan apabila frasa nama menjadi
predikat ayat.

Salah
(a) *Beg ini bukan berat.
(b) "Adik bukan tidur di bilik.
(c) *Dia bukan menulis surat.

Betul
(a) Beg ini tidak berat.
(b) Adik tidak tidur di bilik.
(c) Dia tidak menulis surat.

source: http://tatabahasabm.tripod.com/tata/salahtata.htm