Hau: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of

emotion
Cliff Goddard

Introduction1

The word hau is one of the "key words" of Malay culture. By this I mean,
following Wierzbicka (1997), that hati functions as a conceptual focal
point for an entire complex of characteristically Malay values, attitudes,
and expectations; and that by studying the meaning and uses of this one
word we can learn a surprising amount about Malay culture - in particular,
about the conceptualisation of emotion in Malay culture.
Though the nearest English gloss for hati is 'heart' (in its emotional-
moral sense) the two words are not semantically identical, if only because
the Malay hati is significantly more active, and more cognitive, than the
English heart. A more revealing, but still inadequate, gloss for hati would
be 'the sensitive part of a person'. Hati has a high frequency in any dis-
course about human interaction - partly on account of its participation in
dozens (if not scores) of fixed expressions concerning attitudes, moods,
and personal traits, e.g. susah hati 'troubled, worried', hati keras 'deter-
mined', rendah hati 'humble, modest', partly because the hati is the locus
for feelings (especially feelings about other people), and partly because
emotional reactions are often presented in terms of the hati "speaking". As
one might expect, the word occurs frequently in traditional sayings and
poems, and in popular song titles. It is no exaggeration to say that one can-
not approach an understanding of Malay attitudes about human nature and
about social life without understanding this quintessentially Malay con-
cept.
It would be impossible in one short paper to detail the full range of usage
of hati. I attempt here to do the following: first, to outline the range of use
and collocational possibilities of hati, informally comparing and contrast-
ing it with English heart, second, to advance and argue for an explicit sem-
antic explication of hati in its core or central meaning (as in an expression
like hati orang 'a person's hati'); third, to explicate the semantics of five

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common fixed expressions involving hati, all of which designate what we

might term feeling-states or emotional reactions: susah hati 'troubled,
worried', senang hati 'relaxed, easy at heart'; sakit hati 'annoyed, of-
fended', puas hati 'satisfied (with someone)', kecil hati 'feel hurt'. The
example sentences given throughout come from a corpus of contemporary
informal Malay writing.

1. The uses and meaning of hati

To begin with, it is useful to highlight the differences between Malay hati
and the emotional-moral sense of English heart, as in expressions such as
broken-hearted, matters of the heart, a good heart, and so. (For a com-
parable study, see Diller and Juntanamalaga's (1990) study of the syntax
and semantics of Thai cay 'heart, mind, disposition'. Limitations of space
prohibit consideration of various intriguing parallels between the situation
in Malay and in Thai, which are geographically contiguous but genetically
unrelated languages. Actually, the parallels extend to many languages of
Southeast Asia, cf. Matisoff (1986), Oey (1990), which forms a "linguistic
area" in many respects.)
One difference between heart and hati, perhaps not terribly significant
for our purposes, is although both words have polysemic senses referring
to parts of the body, anatomically hati refers not to the heart (which isjan-
tung), but to the liver.2 A second, more significant, difference has been
mentioned above: that Malay hati is more cognitive and more active than
English heart. To illustrate the first of these properties, consider
example (1) below. It would hardly be possible, in English, to say that
one's heart was filled with thoughts, or with memories (one's mind, per-
haps, but not one's heart). On the same point, it is noteworthy that certain
fixed expressions involving hati are more felicitously translated into Eng-
lish using mind than heart. For example, senang hati (senang 'relaxed,
easy') as 'peace of mind'.
(1) ... seribu satu masalah memenuhi hatinya. Ingatannya pada ibu-
nya di kampung, ingat adik-adiknya yang masih kecil-kecil, ingat
pula pesanan ibunya.
'...a thousand and one troubles filled her hati. Memories of her
mother in the village, of her brothers and sisters who were still
little, memories also of her mother's exhortations.'

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 H at i: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion 169

The more active nature of the Malay hati is shown by the existence of ex-
pressions such as those in (2) and (3), in which the hati is depicted as ter-
tanya 'spontaneously asking' an emotionally loaded question, or as bisik
'whispering' an emotional reaction. In general, the hati is capable of "ex-
pressing" itself in ways which can be reported with a wide range of speech-
act verbs, includingpujuk 'console, persuade', rungut 'grumble', and plain
kata 'say', aside from those verbs illustrated below. (Note that in examples
throughout the paper, one sees hati suffixed with pronominal clitics: -ku Ί,
my', -mu 'you, your', -nya 'he/she, his/her'.)

(2) Ay u ... Hatiku tertanya-tanya mengapakah kau menghubungiku

lagi?
'Ayu... My hati keeps asking why do you keep (trying to) contact
me?'
(3) Ini bukan wayang kulit, bisik hatinya kecewa.
'This isn't shadow theatre, he thought to himself (lit. whispered his
hati) with disappointment.'

Even more striking, it is quite common to see emotional reactions at-

tributed directly to a person's hati, as though the hati itself were the "ex-
periencer". That is, rather than saying the equivalent of Ί am sad', one says
'my hati is sad' or 'this hati is sad'; rather than saying 'it hurt me', one says
'it hurt my hati' or 'it hurt this hati'. Examples are given in (4)-(6) below.

(4) Roslina tidak dapat berkata apa-apa lagi, hatinya terasa diiris-
iris, pedih, pahit.
'Roslina couldn't say anything more, her hati felt cut up, smarting,
bitter.'
(5) Pada masa yang sama teruskan usaha membahagiakan dan
menggembirakan hati ibu dengan bantuan yang terdaya.
'At the same time carry on your effort to make your mother's hati
happy and pleased with the best help you can give her.'
(6) Tapi Chan tak tau pedihnya hati ni bila mendapati Chan tak ada di
tempat biasa... Tak boleh takjumpa. Rosak hati ni.
'But you (Chan) don't know how sad this hati was on realising that
you (Chan) weren't at the usual place... We have to meet. (If not) it
hurts this hati.'

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The hau may also be the locus of desire or intention, especially if the de-
sire or intention concerns another person. Not only may one speak of niat
hati 'desire in one's hati', hasrat hau 'hati's desire', kehendak hau 'hati's
wish, desire', but also of the hati actively wanting or intending to do some-
thing. For example:

(7) Keesokan harinya Rizal sudah awal menanti kedatangan Rina.

Hatinya sudah tak tahan lagi untuk menatap wajah ay u isterinya.
'The following day Rizal was awaiting his wife's return all day. He
(lit. his hati) couldn't wait (lit. withstand) any longer to set eyes on
his wife's lovely face.'
(8) Sebenarnya sejak kita berjumpa dulu lagi hati say a terbetik hen-
dak membuat cadangan.
'As a matter of fact, ever since we've been reunited my hati has
been itching to make a suggestion.'
Along with these differences between hati and heart, there are also im-
portant affinities between the two concepts. Like the heart, the hati is the
realm of feelings, especially sustained feelings about other people, such as
cinta 'romantic love', rindu 'longing', cemburu 'jealousy, envy', and sedih
'sorrow'. The generic expressionperasaan hati (whereperasaan 'feelings'
is a nominalisation of rasa 'feel'), corrresponds closely to feelings of the
heart. That is, it designates feelings which are relatively longstanding, in-
volve evaluation, and are directed toward another person (as opposed to
transient or impersonal feelings such as terkejut 'being startled', takut
'fear'), cf. Heider (1991), Goddard (1995).
Also like English heart, the hati is by nature a private, inner realm.
Others cannot know the isi hati 'contents of the hati' unless the subject
chooses to luahkan 'let (it) out' or to mencurahkan 'pour (it) out'. Conse-
quently, one often finds hati used in contexts like those in (9)-(l 1) below,
which concern private, hidden emotions. I believe there is a subtle differ-
ence between the expressions di hati (lit. 'at hati') and (di) dalam hati (lit.
'inside hati'}, the latter expression conveying a greater sense of conceal-
ment, or at least, greater contrast with external appearances; but we can let
this pass here. Notice also the existence of expressions such as di sudut hati
'in the depths of the hati', terpendam di hati 'buried in the hati', and hati
kecil 'innermost hati' (lit. 'small hati'} - all of which highlight the hidden,
inaccessible depths of the hati.

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(9) Jauh di sudut hatinya, kasih mula dipintal, sayang mula dianyam
dan cinta mula dipilin.
'Deep in the recesses of her heart, love began to wring out, care
began to be woven, and passion began to be plaited.'
(10) Namun di dalam hatinya dia merasa bangga kerana dipuji, kerana
ramai yang terpesona pada kejelitaannya.
'But in her heart she felt proud of the compliment, because there
were many who were enchanted by her beauty.'
(11) Perasaan marah kerana ayah berkasar dengan ibu itu memang
biasa dalam hati seorang anak.
'The feeling of annoyance on account of a father's harsh treatment
of a mother is simply normal in the hati of a child.'

Consistent with the private, inacessible nature of the hati is the fact that a
person can say things (di) dalam hati 'inside the hati', meaning to say
things to oneself, as illustrated in (12) and (13) below; cf. also the ex-
pression membaca di dalam hati 'read to oneself, as opposed to reading
aloud.

(12) Tidak ada yang menarik, katanya dalam hati.

'Nothing interesting here, he said to himself (lit. inside hati).'
(13) Ah, gila aku macam nil Bolehjadi gila! Jerit Mira, tetapi di dalam
hatinya saja.
Oh, I'm going crazy. I really will go crazy! Screamed Mira, but
only to herself (lit. inside her hati).'

A reference to the hati belonging to someone, being given to someone, or

being attracted to or ensnared by someone, indicates romantic love or at-
traction. For example, Hatinya terpikat kepada Jasni 'her heart was snared
by Jasni', i.e. she was secretly in love with him. Sundry other hati ex-
pressions also concern love; for example, buah hau (buah 'fruit') means
'sweetheart'; jatuh hati (jatuh 'fall') is 'to fall in love with'. It may be
worth noting in passing that romance has always been a deeply ingrained
tradition in Malay rural society (cf. Karim 1990), and in modern times
Malay pop music maintains this tradition, with an even greater concen-
tration on sweetness, unfulfilled yearning, sacrificing for love, etc. than
Western pop music.

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Fixed expressions involving hati are extremely numerous, and can be

classified into several groups on both formal and semantic grounds
(cf. Karim 1990). Among the more revealing verbal expressions involving
hati are those listed in (14a)-(14f). Abdullah's (1990) Karnus Simpulan
Bahasa [Dictionary of Fixed Expressions] lists another two dozen or so.
(14) a. jaga hati 'to be protective of (someone's) feelings' (lit.
'watch over hati')
b. ambil hati 'to charm (someone), win over' (lit. 'get hati')
c. suka hati 'do as you please, do whatever you feel like' (lit.
'please hati')
d. tidak sampai hati 'can't stand to (do something)' (lit. 'not
reach hati')
e. cuba hati 'test (someone's) honesty or commitment' (lit. 'try
hati')
f. ubah hati 'change attitude, switch allegiances' (lit. 'change
hati')
Taken together, these expressions illustrate the rather rich nature of the
hati, combining aspects of feeling, wanting, and thinking. To begin with,
there is the expression jaga hati (orang) 'be protective of (people's) hati',
which can be regarded as designating one of the central themes of Malay
culture. Cultural commentators invariably emphasise the great value
placed on "showing consideration and concern, anticipating the other...
and, above all, being sensitive to the other person" (Wilson 1967: 131-2),
lest the other person's feelings be hurt (tersinggung). In the expression
jaga hati, hati seems nearly equivalent to the word perasaan 'feelings'. In-
deed, jaga hati is often paraphrased as memelihara perasaan 'tend to feel-
ings' or bertimbang rasa 'take account (lit. weigh) feelings'; and the com-
bination hati dan perasaan 'hati and feelings' is not uncommon.
In the expressions in (14b)-(14d), however, we find hati being em-
ployed in a way which seems to combine reference both to feelings and to
intentions. To ambil hati is to gain an influence over someone by being
sweet and charming; suka hati means to do as one's pleases (generally re-
garded, in Malay culture, as a risky and immature way to act), and the ex-
pression tidak sampai hati indicates something that one cannot stand to do.
Finally, in the expressions in (14e)-(14f) hati seems to designate an even
broader, and more enduring, aspect of a person: something akin to integrity
or one's degree of commitment to a cause or to another person.

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 Hau: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion 173

The same broad range of semantic effects is found among fixed nominal
expressions involving hati. Most of these have a two-part structure, con-
sisting of hati and an adjective. They can be grouped formally according to
whether the adjective follows or precedes the noun hati. Attributive adjec-
tives normally follow their head nouns in Malay, but hati + adjective is the
less frequent of the two patterns. Abdullah's (1990) Kamus Simpulan Ba-
hasa [Dictionary of Fixed Expressions], for example, lists around
15 hati + adjective expressions, but over 50 adjective + hati expressions.
Both these figures are likely to be far short of the full number, as several of
the combinations listed below are not on Abdullah's lists, but the relative
preponderance of the adjective + hati pattern is clear.
While the semantic difference between the meanings expressed via these
two patterns is not perfectly clear to me, it seems that while the hati + ad-
jective pattern encodes an attributive relationship (as one would expect),
the adjective + hati pattern is more like a "locus" relationship, at least when
it designates a feeling, as in the examples listed in (15 a). That is, a pre-
posed adjective does not "describe" the hati, but rather it indicates a feeling
or attitude which is being located, so to speak, in the hati (somewhat simi-
lar in construction to English phrases such as sick at heart). The locus con-
struction with hati also seems somehow to "personalise" the state being de-
scribed. A second group of adjective + hati expressions seem to designate
moral aspects of a person's character. Some examples are listed in (15 b).
These might seem to be straightforwardly attributive, but my impression is
that the meaning structure is more subtle than this: that these expressions
are not describing the person's hati as such, but are describing the person
him or herself- by means of saying something about the hati (perhaps a bit
like English expressions such as pure of heart). More research is obviously
needed.
Examples of several semantic subcategories of the two patterns follow.
Notice that the adjectives involved also fall into several types. There are ex-
plicitly moral terms such as murni 'noble' and murah 'generous', there are
more general evaluative terms such as baik 'good', tulus 'pure', kotor
'dirty,' and busuk 'putrid', there are terms for sensation-states such as
panas 'hot', sejuk 'cold', sakit 'hurting', and puas 'sated', and there are
terms for physical dimensions and states such as besar 'big', kecil 'small',
lembut 'tender', keras 'hard', berat 'heavy', andputus 'broken'.

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(15) Adjective + hati

a. Emotions and moods:
besar hati 'proud, thrilled with'
(besar 'big')
kecil hati' feeling hurt' (kecil 'small')
geli hati 'amused, tickled' (geli
'ticklish')
iri hati 'envious, spiteful'
panas hati 'angry, worked up' (panas
'hot')
sejuk hati 'calmed, reassured'
(sejuk 'cool, cold')
susah hati 'troubled' (susah 'difficult')
senang hati 'contented, relaxed'
(senang 'easy')
hancur hati 'devastated' (hancur
'crushed')
puas hati 'satisfied' (puas 'sated')
sakit hati 'annoyed, resentful'
(sakit 'sick, pain')
putus hati 'despairing' (putus
'broken asunder')
lapang hati 'content' (lapang
'vacant, open')
b. Aspects of moral character:
baik hati 'kind, good-hearted' (baik 'good')
busuk hati 'vicious, mean' (busuk 'putrid')
tulus hati 'sincere, honest' (tulus 'pure, un-
adulterated')
murah hati 'generous hearted', (murah
'generous')
rendah hati 'humble, modest' (rendah
'low')
tinggi hati 'proud' (tinggi 'high')
putih hati 'sincere, honest' (putih 'white')
suci hati 'pure of motive' (suci 'morally
pure')
tabah hati 'determined' (tabah 'resolute,
persevere')
lembut hati 'tender-hearted' (lembut
'tender')
tawar hati 'lost interest' (tawar 'bland')
keras hati 'stubborn' (keras 'hard')

(16) hati + Adjective

a. Moral states (often in religious b. States of mind:
contexts):
hati bersih (lit. 'clean') hati keras 'determined' (keras 'hard')
hati kotor (lit. 'dirty') hati terbuka '(with) an open mind' (terbuka
Open')
hati nurani 'enlightened, virtuous' hati waja 'resolute, determined' (waja
(nurani 'bright') 'steel')
hati murni 'noble heart' (murni 'noble')
hati tawajuh 'devout' (tawajuh 'devoted
to God')
c. States of suffering:
hati berat (berat 'heavy')
hati luka (luka 'wounded')
hati terkilan 'upset, aggrieved'
hati mutu/walang 'melancholy, depressed'

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To round out this quick picture of the uses ofhati, it is instructive to look
at someperibahasa 'traditional sayings' andpepatah 'maxims'. Tradition-
ally, there were literally hundreds of peribahasa, which to a large extent
encapsulated the distinctive Malay adat 'customs, rules for living'. These
days many of the old peribahasa have fallen out of use, but even so scores
of them survive in everyday use. In (17) the reference to hau carries moral
overtones. The hati is the source of morally correct action, so better one's
eyes be blind than one's hati. (18) reflects the view that people's hati can be
reached by tutur yang manis 'sweet words', which can soften even the har-
dest hati. In example (19), however, the reference to hati is less favourable.
The sentiment is cautionary: we will suffer if we ikut hati 'follow hati'
without careful reflection, another persistent theme of Malay culture. Per-
haps the allusion here is primarily directed towards the role of the hati in
romantic matters. In (20), the expression dekat di hati 'close at hati' refers
to fondness: someone may be physically far away and yet be held in fond
remembrance. The expressions in (21)-(22) employ hati from yet another
angle, referring here to a general alignment of views and attitudes. People
who are sehati One hati' are all of the one mind; those who are hati Iain-
lain 'different hati' cannot get on harmoniously.

(17) Biar buta matajangan buta hati.

'Let the eyes be blind, (but) not the hati'
(18) Batu pun empuk, jangankan hati manusia.
'(If) even a rock can be softened, why not the hearts of people.'
(19) Ikut rasa binasa, ikut hati mati.
'Follow feelings suffer, follow hati die.'
(20) Jauh di mata, dekat di hati.
'Far from sight, (but) close at heart.'
(21) Rambut sama hitarn, hati Iain-lain.
'The same black hair, (but) different at heart.'
(22) a. Sehati sejiwa.
One hati, one soul.'
b. Sama sehati.
'at one' (lit. 'same one hati')

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2. Meaning of hati

Three things should be evident at this point: (1) that hati is one of the key
ethnopsychological terms of the Malay language and culture; (2) that hati
has certain similarities with the English term heart', (3) that hati also differs
in important respects from English heart. The question now is: Is it poss-
ible, in a principled and rigorous fashion, to state the meanings of words
like hati and heart, so that the singularities and differences can be made be
explicit? The most important scholarly precedent bearing on this question
is Wierzbicka's (1992: 31-63) study of the Russian concept of dusa,
roughly, 'soul', and comparable concepts in several other European lan-
guages, such as Russian serdce, English heart, mind, and soul, and German
Seele.
For purposes of comparison, it is useful to consider Wierzbicka's (1992:
48) explication (below) of English heart. It is framed within the "natural
semantic metalanguage" (NSM) approach to semantic description, accord-
ing to which meanings are stated in the form of explanatory paraphrases
composed in a small, standardised and translatable metalanguage based on
natural language. For the purposes of this paper, it is not necessary to de-
scribe this methodology or the theory behind it in any detail
(cf. Wierzbicka 1996, Goddard and Wierzbicka eds, In press). A list of
NSM semantic primes, in English and Malay, is given in the Appendix. All
the explications should be readily translatable into Malay, cf. Goddard (In
press).
(23) heart
(a) a part of a person
(b) one cannot see it
(c) one can imagine that it is a part of the person's body
(d) (in the middle of the upper part of the body
(e) one can hear its movements)
(f) because of this part, a person can feel good things and bad
things
(g) because of this part, a person can feel good things towards
other people
It will be be helpful if we work through this explication line by line.
Lines (a)-(c) state that a heart is a 'part of a person', which we cannot see
but which we can 'imagine' to be part of the person's body. The wording

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here is intended to capture the fact that although we recognise that heart (in
its emotional-moral sense) is not part of a person's body it can nonetheless
be thought of as such. Lines (d)-(e) indicate which particular physical part
is implied. The key components of the explication are, however, the final
two lines. Line (f) states that it is the heart which enables a person to 'feel
good things and bad things'. This reflects the fact that the heart is linked
only with "valenced" feelings such as joy, bitterness and sadness, and not
with neutral feelings such as surprise and interest, which make no refer-
ence to the concepts of 'good' and 'bad' (one can 'feel' surprise and inter-
est, but not in one's heart). Line (g) goes on to state more specifically that
the heart enables one to 'feel good things towards other people'. This re-
flects the fact that, so far as feelings directed towards other people are con-
cerned, the heart is specifically linked with the potential for positive feel-
ings (love, pity, admiration, etc.).
Since the above explication was originally proposed, there have been
some significant refinements to the natural semantic metalanguage theory,
so not surprisingly there are several matters of phrasing which now appear
less than optimal. In particular: (a) the term imagine is no longer regarded
as a viable semantic prime, (b) the expression feelings towards is now re-
cognised not to be a universal syntactic possibility for the primitive feel. In
addition, (c) it is preferable to avoid using the term and (as in good things
and bad things), since and is not a linguistic universal either. Rephrasing to
dispense with these features would make the heart explication somewhat
longer, but content-wise it is, in my opinion, substantially correct, and
forms a useful point of comparison for our account of Malay hau.
In view of the discussion of hau in the preceding section, I would pro-
pose the following explication.

(24) hau orang (a person's hau)

(a) a part of a person
(b) people think it is like a part of a person's body
a big part inside the middle of the body
(c) when a person thinks about someone else for some time,
something can happen in this part
(d) when this happens, this person feels something because of it
sometimes something good, sometimes something bad
(e) because of this, this person wants to do something
sometimes something good, sometimes something bad

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(f) when something happens in this part of a person,

this person can think:
this is like something inside me is saying something to me
(g) other people can't know what happens in this part of a person,
if this person doesn't want them to know

The first two lines are similar in intention to their counterparts in

Wierzbicka's explication for heart. Component (a) just states that the had
is a part of a person. Component (b) conveys the notion that the hau is
thought of as 'like' a part of a person's body, and therefore, by implication,
not literally a body-part.
The second line of component (b), which characterises the physical part
of the body involved, i.e. the liver, is provisional at this stage. It describes
the liver simply as a large internal organ. It would be good to find out more
about traditional Malay folk beliefs about the bodily hati, as reflected, for
example, in traditional healing practices. Intriguingly, Peletz (1996: 206)
remarks in passing that: "Some Malays refer to the liver as the 'ruler' (raja)
of the human body and note that it 'governs' or 'regulates' (merintah) the
rest of the body, much like a ruler or commander governs his army." Karim
(1990: 26) describes the liver as a "mysterious organ, which is believed to
control the moods and emotions of humans and to command more perma-
nently their psyche and personality in both a psychological (zahir) and
spiritual (batin) sense."
The bulk of the explication attempts to articulate the rich cultural con-
strual of this "mysterious organ". Component (c) states that sustained
thought about another person can be associated with an event ('something
happening') in the hati. This already gives the hati a more dynamic quality
than the English heart. The internal events of the hati, according to com-
ponent (d), give rise to feelings which may be either good or bad. These
feelings, according to component (e), have motivational consequences, i.e.
they can lead to the person wanting to do something, which, again, may be
something good or something bad. This set of components, i.e. compo-
nents (c)-(e), spells out the role of the hati as the wellspring of interper-
sonal feelings and intentions. The specification that the intended actions
are 'sometimes good, sometimes bad' embues the hati with a certain moral
ambivalence. If we were to follow the urgings of the hati alone, therefore,
the results would not always be good (hence the need for careful monitor-
ing and regulation of the hati, as mentioned in the earlier discussion).

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Component (f) characterises an important aspect of the phenomenology

of the hau, the fact that it can seem to the experiencer that the hati is 'say-
ing something' to him or her. This component reflects the relatively active
and cognitive role of the hati (as compared with English heart}. The final
component (g) specifies that the workings of the hati are inaccessible to
other people, unless the experiencer wishes other people to know of them.

3. Feeling states of the hati

Given that the hati is the source of emotional responses to other people, it is
not surprising that there are so many emotional expressions based on hati.
In the remainder of the paper we will look at five such expressions, seen in
(15 a) above, which are common in everyday discourse.

(25) susah hati 'troubled, worried, preoccupied' (susah 'difficult')

senang hati 'relaxed, comfortable, happy' (senang 'easy')
sakit hati 'annoyed, offended, resentful' (sakit 'sick, pain')
puas hati 'satisfied, pleased' (puas 'satisfied, sated')
kecil hati 'feeling hurt, disappointed' (kecil 'small')
Each of these expressions is commonly verbalised by means of the pro-
ductive causative derivation, which is achieved by simultaneous affixation
with the transitive prefix meN- and the valency-increasing suffix -kan. The
prefix meN- requires some brief description. Basically the final segment is
a nasal whose realisation depends on the nature of the initial segment of the
root. If the initial segment of the root is a voiced obstruent, N appears as a
homorganic nasal (e.g. besar 'big', membesarkan 'make big'), but if it is a
voiceless obstruent, N appears as a homorganic nasal which replaces the
voiceless obstruent (except if the obstruent is palatal stop c, in which case
meN- appears as men-}. For example, corresponding to puas we have me-
muaskan, and corrresponding to senang we have menyenangkan. Thus:

(26) menyusahkan hati 'make troubled, preoccupied'

menyenangkan hati 'make comfortable, please'
menyakitkan hati 'annoy, offend, embitter'
memuaskan hati 'satisfy, please'
mengecilkan hati 'hurt, disappoint'

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In the following, I will assume that the verbal expressions incorporate

the same meaning as the base expressions.3

Susah hati
Susah hati designates a troubled state of mind. This may be focused either
on oneself or on someone else one cares about. A person who is susah hati
is preoccupied with the idea that something bad and undesirable may
happen to someone. The experiencer feels under pressure to do something
to prevent it, but, unfortunately, he or she cannot think what to do. Hence
overall one is left in an unpleasant state of troubled preoccupation.

(27) Person-X susah hati

(a) for some time, X thinks something like this:
(b) something bad can happen to someone
(c) I don't want this
(d) I have to do something
(e) I can't think what I can do
(f) because of this, X feels something bad
In support of this explication, I can offer the following observations.
First, susah hati may occur with a complement introduced by memikirkan
(tentang) 'thinking about'. This is consistent with the active cognitive
scenario depicted in the explication. Someone who is susah hati is indeed
thinking about something, as stated in component (a).

(28) Dia susah hati memikirkan anaknya yang pergi ke bandar menca-
ri kerja.
She was worried thinking about her son who'd gone to the city
looking for work.
Second, the range of worries which can induce susah hati is quite varied.
It could be a potential problem of just about any kind, and, as shown in
examples (29)-(31), this potential problem may concern either oneself or
someone else one cares about, e.g. a family member. For this reason, com-
ponent (b) is worded in deliberately general and open-ended fashion. The
explication depicts someone who is susah hati as dwelling on the thought
that 'something bad can happen to someone' (where 'someone' could in-
clude oneself). This is a prospect which, as set out in component (c), the
experiencer wishes not to happen. (Note that in the context of (29), the old

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 Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion 181

man was definitely ruminating on what was going to happen to him. His ill-
fated life was evidence for him that there was worse to come.)

(29) Lelaki tua semakin susah hau. Dia sentiasa mengeluh mengen-
angkan nasibnya yang malang.
'The old man got more and more troubled. He was forever sighing
as he recalled his misfortune.'
(30) Perkara ini akan say a selidiki nanti. Bersabarlah, dan jangan
susah hati.
'I'll sort this matter out directly. Be patient, and don't worry.'
(31) Bila dengar Sarha cakap macam tu, say a susah hati takut Sarha
akan bunuh din.
'When I heard Sarha talking like that, I was susah hati fearing that
Sarha would kill herself.'
Given the experiencer's awareness of the possibility of a bad and un-
wanted event befalling someone, component (d) spells out the consequent
sense of responsibility for finding a solution or resolution (Ί have to do
something'). Component (e) states that, for the time being, at least, the ex-
periencer is at a loss about what to do (Ί can't think what to do'). These
components are not as readily or directly illustrated by means of textual
examples, though they emerge clearly from consultations with native
speakers. The following two examples do bear indirectly on compo-
nents (d) and (e), however. In (32) the protagonist is a village girl who has,
for want of money, fallen behind in her studies at a college in the city. The
sight of her books reminds her both of difficulties and of her obligations.

(32) Buku-buku berselerakan di meja belajarnya rasanya sangat me-

nyusahkan hati.
'The books scattered over her desk made her feel heavy-hearted
(susah hati).'

Example (33) is advice being given to a girl who is having problems cop-
ing with the task of looking after her two mischievous younger siblings.
The author (an advice columnist, Kak Nor) assures the girl that the major
responsibility for disciplining the kids lies with the parents. It is enough for
her, as older sister, to give her younger siblings advice to the best of her
ability. The essence of Kak Nor's counsel is to release the troubled young

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writer from her state of susah hati by releasing her from the pressure of
sole responsibility.

(33) Oleh yang demikian adik jangan susah hati. Memadai dengan
memberi nasihat ala kadar.
'Given that this is the case, you (lit. younger sibling) needn't be too
troubled (susah hati). It's enough to give (them) advice to the best
of (your) ability.'

Senang hati
The expression senang hati, roughly 'contented, having peace of mind',
has been identified by some commentators as designating a traditional
Malay social ideal. Djamour (1965: 145-6) says it would be difficult to
overemphasise its importance: "it permeates all fields of human behaviour.
When a Malay contemplates a change of residence, marriage, divorce, or
the exercise of a profession, the primary consideration is... serenity of
mind". Djamour and others (e.g. Maeda 1975) note that Malays would
often rather disregard grievances or dissatisfactions than disturb their
"peace of mind".
I would advance the following explication, much of which is, in effect,
the converse of susah hati. Whereas someone who is susah hati is con-
cerned about possible misfortune (thinking 'something bad can happen to
someone; I don't want this') and feels under pressure to act (thinking Ί
have to do something'), the person who is senang hati is free from such
concerns and pressure. There is also a positive dimension, stated in com-
ponent (e). The person who is senang hati has a sense of being able to do
what he or she wants. This cognitive state brings about a 'good feeling'.4

(34) Person-X senang hati

(a) for some time, X wasn't thinking something like this:
(b) something bad can happen to someone
(c) I don't want this
(d) X thinks something like this:
(e) I don't have to do anything now
(f) if I want to do something I can do it
(g) because of this, X feels something good

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Some features of this explication can be justified by reference to the fol-

lowing naturally occurring examples. Firstly, one's senang hati may be
threatened by a concern of any kind, whether focused on the experiencer
himself or herself, or another person, typically a family member (or some-
one else one feels loyal toward or protective of).

(35) Anak rusa berasa senang hati kerana tuannya sentiasa menjag-
anya daripada dibunuh anjing-anjing.
The young deer felt very secure (senang hati) because his master
was always watching over him to protect him from being killed by
dogs (from a children's story).'
(36) Dia senang hati bila mendapat tahu anaknya sudah tiba di rumah
sepupunya dengan selamat.
'He was relieved (senang hati) when he found out his child had ar-
rived at his cousin's house safely.'
As suggested by these examples, and also by the following one, the ex-
pression senang hati is typically found in situations which focus on being
free of particular concerns or troubles.

(37) "Kenapa kau kata begitu Nadia?" Sambil mengemas-ngemas

rambut isterinya, Rizal cuba untuk menyenangkan hati Nadia.
'"Why do you say such things Nadia?" As he stroked his wife's
hair, Rizal tried to calm her (lit. calm her hati)'
When one speaks of wishing to bring about a state of senang hati in one's
parents (a wish commonly expressed by young adults), what is being re-
ferred to is not only the wish that the parents be free of financial and other
worries, but also that they should feel free of the various pressures and re-
sponsibilities which they have been subject to all this time as parents - they
should now be able to do as they please. (Cf. also the expression senang
hati, goyang kaki 'carefree at heart, swinging one's feet', which depicts the
carefree attitude of someone who is free of the pressure to work.)

(38) Aku berkerja rajin-rajin untuk menjimatkan duit. Aku hendak

membeli rumah untuk menyenangkan hati ibu baba.
'I'm working really hard to save up money. I want to buy a house
to make my parents' lives easier.'

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Notice that the expression tidakltak ('not') senang hau is often used as a
euphemism to refer to emotions and reactions which are presumably more
serious in reality than simply an absence of senang hau. There is nothing
particularly surprising about this (much the same happens with the English
word happy, as the translations below illustrate). Example (39) is address-
ed by a girl to a persistent, unwelcome suitor. In example (40) a divorcee is
relating how people reacted when, after some years of financial hardship,
she was finally able to afford to smarten up her image.

(39) Sungguh aku tak senang hati setiap detik melihat tingkah laku kau
yang menjemukan itu.
'Really I'm not happy every time I see the tiresome way you carry
on.'
(40) Tetapi ada orang tidak senang hati, kalau orang perempuan,
mereka mula memikirkan mungkin saya melaram untuk memer-
angkap suami mereka. Bagi orang lelakipula mereka berpendapat
mungkin saya memang hendak menarik perhatian mereka.
'But there some people who aren't happy (with me), if they're
women, they've begun to think that maybe I am showing off with a
view to snaring their husbands. For the men, they think maybe I am
trying to attract their attentions.'

Sakit hati
The primary meaning of sakit is 'in pain, sick, ill', as in expressions like
sakit kepala 'head ache' (kepala 'head') and sakit kuning 'diabetes' (kun-
ing 'urine'), so on the basis of their English counterparts one might im-
agine that sakit hati is something like English sick at heart. But this would
be mistaken: sakit hati may perhaps imply something like pain, but nothing
like incapacity. If anything, it has a rather active flavour, suggesting the
possibility of some kind of reprisal. An interesting interpretation of sakit
hati comes from an old medical work (Ellis 1893) on the amuk syndrome,
i.e., the insane 'killing frenzy' to which Malays occasionally fall victim.
Ellis (cited in Winzeler 1990: 106) makes the observation that the mental
state of a person preceding an attack was invariably described, by Malays,
as sakit hati, a state which he describes as involving 'depression and brood-
ing over wrongs or supposed wrongs'.

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Various bilingual dictionaries give 'resentful, angry' (Coope 1991: 307),

'annoyed' (Haji Abdul Rahman 1994: 231), 'annoyed, irritated, resentful'
(Awang and Yusoff 1990: 942). Definitions in monolingual Malay diction-
aries tend to combine a reference to marah 'angry, offended' with tersing-
gung 'have one's feelings hurt'. For example: berasa marah atau tersing-
gung kerana dihina atau ditipu 'feel offended or hurt because being ma-
ligned or cheated' (Abdullah 1996: 265); berasa tersinggung atau marah
kerana sesuatu sebab atau perbuatan orang lain 'feel hurt or angry be-
cause some reason or action of another person' (Zakaria 1988: 118). No-
tice that these two sources differ on whether the cause of sakit hau is typi-
cally or predominantly verbal (as implied by Abdullah's reference to
being maligned or cheated), or whether the cause might be an action of an-
other kind.
According to the explication below, sakit hau designates a reaction to
someone else's behaviour (typically but not necessarily verbal), behaviour
which is seen as indicative of this person's lack of esteem for the experi-
encer. It is coming face to face with this unpleasant fact which causes an
unpleasant feeling in the experiencer (and explains the affinity with being
offended) and which provokes an urge to do something (typically but not
necessarily retaliation).

(41) Person-X sakit hati

(a) for some time X thinks something like this about someone
else:
(b) this person did (said) something
(c) if this person thought good things about me,
he/she wouldn't have done this
(d) I want to do something to someone because of this
(e) because of this, X feels something bad

Various features of this explication can be supported by the examples

below. Examples (42) and (43) show typical contexts for sakit hati (and its
verbal derivative menyakitkan hati). They describe a person's reaction to
being maligned, or to being the butt of sarcasm or insinuation. In both
cases the stimulus is a verbal event. Note, though, that the speech-act may
or may not be addressed to the experiencer him or herself.

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(42) Paling menyakitkan hati dia tuduh kita curi duit dia, macamlah
kita ini pencuri besar.
'What really makes us mad (causes sakit hati) was him accusing us
of stealing his money, as though we were a terrible thief.'
(43) Panas telinga Mira mendengar sindiran Razi. Tetapi, bersabarlah
wahai hati, biarlah dia hendak menyindir atau menyakitkan hati
aku, biarlah, asal dia bahagia.
'Mira's ears burnt listening to Razi's needling. But, be patient hati,
let him if he wants to needle me or pain me (causes sakit hati), let
him, as long as he's happy.'
Still with verbal stimuli, (44) is an interesting example. In this case, what
provokes the protagonist's sakit hati is the way his rival is publicly praised
by the manager. Although the speech-act in this case is not actually about
the experiencer, it still reflects on his performance and on his standing in
the eyes of his superior, the manager (if the manager thought him the equal
of his rival, why not praise him at the same time?).

(44) Menurut pengarah, Hasnul seorang pekerja yang baik dan aman-
ah. Lebih menyakitkan hatinya pula, apabila pengarah tanpa
segan-silu memuji kebaikan Hasnul di hadapannya.
'According to the manager, Hasnul was a good and honest worker.
That only further inflamed his hatred (of Hasnul), especially when
the manager praised Hasnul in front of him.'
The following examples show that sakit hati can be induced by non-ver-
bal events - by a social event such as divorce and its attendant compli-
cations, as in (45), or a physical event such as carelessly bumping into
someone, as in (46).

(45) Lagipun saya rasa lebih baik bercerai waktu muda, hati tak sakit
sangat, kalau dah tua nanti lebih menyakitkan hati.
'Besides I reckon it's better to divorce when you're still young, it
doesn't make (one) so bitter, but if you're already old it makes one
more bitter.'
(46) Mohamad sakit hati melihat Mahmud yang melanggarnya tanpa
sebab. (Zakaria Salleh 1998: 18)
'Mohamad was annoyed seeing that Mahmud had bumped into
him without any reason.'

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Puas hati
The expression puas hati designates a good feeling resulting from some-
one's behaviour, when this behaviour is something that the experiencer has
wanted for some time.

(47) Person-X puas hati

(a) X thinks something like this about someone:
(b) this person did something
(c) for some time, I wanted this person to do this
(d) because of this, X feels something good
Typical examples involve a family member, employee, or boss fulfilling
expectations, as in examples (48)-(50) below. However, one can also be
puas hati in relation to one's own behaviour; for example, if one has man-
aged to achieve something one has long strived for, as in (51).

(48) ... apa yang say a buat tak kena pada padangannya. Hinggakan
cara saya gosok bajupun dia tak puas hati dan tak kena pada mat-
any a.
'...nothing I did was any good in his eyes. Even to the point where
the way I ironed a shirt didn't please him and wasn't good enough.'
(49) Dia berasa puas hati dengan kerajinan Jali. Orangnya agak lurus
dan raj in.
'She felt pleased with Jali's diligent (work). He seemed an honest
and hard-working sort of person.'
(50) "Cakaplah! Cakap apa sahaja yang kamu semua tidak puas
hati!" sambung Tuan Setiausaha lagi.
'"Speak up! Say whatever, whoever isn't contented!", added the
Chief Secretary.'
(51) Saya tidak puas hati hingga saya menyelesaikan kerja saya.
Ί won't be satisfied until I complete my work.'
Generally speaking, the action or behaviour which gives rise to the puas
hati reaction can itself be described as good - but not always. In
example (52), the speaker is expressing her pleasure at the suffering of her
rival. The explication is worded so as to accommodate such uses; it does
not describe the person's behaviour as, so to speak, good in itself, but
merely as something which the experiencer wants.

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(52) Biar dia cemburu, biar dia marah, biar dia tak tidur malam...
biarkan. Barupuas hati aku!
'Let her be jealous, let her be angry, let her not sleep at night... so
be it. Finally I'm content.'

Kecil hati
When someone unexpectedly does something (typically, but not necess-
arily, says something) and this makes us realise that this person doesn't ac-
tually think much of us, the unpleasant feeling this induces is the feeling of
kecil (lit. 'small') hati.

(53) Person-X kecil hati

(a) X thinks something like this about someone:
(b) this person did something
(c) I didn't think this person would do something like this
(d) I know now that this person doesn't think good things
about me
(e) X feels something bad because of this
Some of the key points about the above explication can be illustrated
with the following examples. In (54) and (55) we see typical examples in
which the triggering event is someone saying something which betrays
their negative attitude towards us. Notice, though, that the speaker's dictum
does not have to be explicitly about the experiencer (though it very often
is). For example, in (55) Razi's words are certainly unkind and reflect a dis-
missive attitude towards Mira, but they are not directly about Mira. This
example can also be used to illustrate another point, which is that the
speaker need not be explicitly addressing the experiencer; if Mira had over-
heard Razi talking about her like that, she would feel kecil hati. These con-
siderations explain why component (b) is phrased simply as 'this person
did something' (and not, for instance, 'someone said something about me'
or 'someone said something to me').

(54) Saya rasa begitu kecil hati dan tak sanggup melihat mereka ker-
ana setiap kali berjumpa mereka akan mengeluarkan perkataan
yang bukan-bukan tentu juga kita rasa kecil hati.
Ί feel so hurt and I don't want to see them because every time we
meet they come up with false allegations (against me). Of course
one (lit. we) is hurt.'

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(55) "Itulah sebabnya aku tanya kau! Adakah dia bercuti saja atau dah
berhenti kerja. Sekurang-kurangnya kalau dia berhenti, hilanglah
satu tugas aku untuk bertegang urat dengan dia!". Menggelegak
dada Ezza mendengar jawapan Razi. Kalaulah Mira dengar kata-
kata Razi itu, tentu kecil hati Mira. Kesian Mira.
'"That's why I asked you! Has she just gone on a holiday or has
she quit. At least if she's quit, it'll be the end of my job of tussling
with her!" Ezza's blood boiled when she heard Razi's reply. If
Mira had heard Razi say that, she'd have been so hurt. Poor Mira.'

Staying with the wording of component (b), it may be asked why it does
not contain the specification that what was done or said was 'something
bad'. The reason for preferring the more general phrasing is that kecil hati
can result from actions which are not necessarily being seen as bad in
themselves. For example, in (56) what Pak Ngah Russin did to cause the
speaker's mother to feel kecil hati was to turn her out of his house, telling
her that he was not willing to help her (despite being her neighbour and
much better off than she). The same point is apparent from example (57).
The key thing about the triggering stimulus is not that it is bad in itself but
simply that it makes us realise that the speaker does not hold us in high re-
gard after all; hence, component (d) Ί know now that this person doesn't
think good things about me'.

(56) Nol, Pak Ngah Hussin tidak ben kita pijak tangga rumahnya lagi.
Lagipun emak melarang kita ke sana. Kau tahu Nol, emak benar-
benar kecil hati.
'Nol, Pak Ngah Hussin won't let us step foot in his house again.
Plus, mother has forbidden us to go there. You know Nol, mother
was really hurt.'
(57) Ini mesti ada cerita best kat panggung ni, sikit pun tak nak sound
aku... ini yang kecik hati aku ni.
'This (film) must be the best story in the cinema at the moment, but
they didn't even say a word to me (about their plan to go)... that's
what hurt me so.'

Example (57) raises another consideration which may seem problemati-

cal for the explication, because it shows that sometimes one can feel kecil
hati on account of something which has not been said - in this case, the

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lack of an invitation to go along with friends to the movies. However, I

don't think this really poses a significant problem. It is a very general fact
about semantic explications that an omission to do something can itself
count as doing something. That is, if an explication identifies 'someone did
something' as the triggering event, then in practice this condition can be
also satisfied by someone not doing something, as the result of a more gen-
eral principle of construal.
This concludes our semantic study of five emotive expressions formed
with hati. It perhaps bears repeating that there are dozens of other, similar
expressions.

4. Concluding discussion

What lessons can be drawn from this brief inquiry into the Malay hati? One
lesson is that apparent translation equivalents must be handled with great
care. In a sense, this is a familiar adage, at least to those working in cross-
linguistic semantics. Numerous studies have shown that seemingly "basic"
English words such happiness, anger, fear, love, and pride do not have pre-
cise equivalents in other languages, and, conversely, that the apparently
"basic" emotion vocabulary of other languages often resists straightfor-
ward translation into English. By and large, however, the studies which
have demonstrated this fact have focused on primary (i.e. monolexemic)
emotion terms. There is still a tendency, at least in some quarters, to as-
sume that secondary emotion terms, especially those involving descriptive
words such as 'sick', 'small', or 'soft', can be understood in a transparent
fashion. The present study has shown that any such view would be mis-
taken. For example, the meaning of the Malay expression sakit hati (lit.
sick/pained heart) cannot be deduced, on the basis of an English speaker's
semantic intuitions, from the combination of sick and heart, e.g. sick at
heart or heartsick. Similarly, it would be incorrect to assume that kecil hati
designates either fear or stinginess, although these are the interpretations
which the "translation" small heart tends to suggest to English speakers.
I do not want to suggest that the meanings of "figurative" expressions
like these vary without limit between languages. No doubt there are some
cross-linguistic tendencies to be discovered; I doubt, for example, that in
any language an expression corresponding to 'small heart' would designate
anything like bravery, generosity, or joy. But to establish these tendencies,

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 Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion 191

what is needed is a series of detailed semantic studies of secondary lex-

emes for emotions (and related concepts) in a range of languages.
A second lesson is that to arrive at an authentic picture of the Malay vo-
cabulary of emotion, it is not enough to stop at the one or two dozen mono-
lexemic terms, such as kasih 'care, love', marah 'angry, offended', malu
'shame, embarrassment', etc. (cf. Goddard 1996, 1997b). We have to
come to grips also with the myriad of emotion expressions based on hati,
which equip the Malay language with a versatile resource for describing
subtle nuances of feeling. No doubt many languages have a similarly elab-
orate vocabulary of emotion; for example, Thai, cf. Diller and Juntanama-
laga (1990). If we identify these languages and study these elaborated sys-
tems, we may expect new insights into the human "semantic potential", so
far as emotion is concerned - just as by studying elaborated systems of
positional and directional terms, for example, we can gain insights into
human spatial abilities, and by studying elaborate classifier systems we can
gain insights into categorisation.
Finally, if our objective is to understand culture-specific perspectives on
emotion (including gaining a better perspective on the idiosyncracies of the
English emotion system), it will prove extremely valuable to move beyond
focusing mainly or wholly on emotion expressions per se. Ethnopsychol-
ogy is much broader than this. Wierzbicka (1992) has shown that studying
the Russian key concept of duSa 'soul' opens up a uniquely Russian per-
spective on human nature. I have no doubt that studying the Malay key con-
cept of hati can open up a uniquely Malay perspective on human nature,
and, in particular, on the role of interpersonal feelings in the human condi-
tion.

APPENDIX:
Semantic Primes - English and Malay Exponents
Substantives Time
I-AKU, Ύου-ΚΑυ WHEN/TIME-BILA/MASA(WAKTU)
SOMEOWE-SESEORANG NOW-SEKARANG
SOMETHING-SESi/ArC/ BEFORE-SEBELUM, AFTER-SELEPAS
PEOPLE-ORANG A LONG TIME-LAMA, A SHORT TIME-
SEKEJAP
FOR SOME ΎΙΜΕ-BEBERAPA LAMA

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192 Cliff Goddard

Mental predicates Space

WANT-MA//t/, THINK-/?/™ WHERE /PLACE-D7MANA/TEMPA T,
KNOW-rA/f[7, FEEL-RASA HERE-SINI
SEE-NAMPAK, HEAR-DENGAR ABOVE-(£>/) ΑΓΑ5, BELOW-(/?/)
BAWAH
Speech INSIDE-O/) DALAM
SAY-ΑΓΑ ΓΑ ON (ONE) SIDE -(£>/) SEBELAH
V/OKD-PERKA T A AN NEAR-DEKAT, FAR-JAUH
TRUE-BENAR
Logical concepts
Actions, Events, Movement BECAUSE-SEA4.B, NOT-TIDAK
OO-BUAT, HAPPEN-TERJADI IF-KALAU, ΜΑΎΕΕ-MUNGKIN
MOVE-BERGERAK CAN-BOLEH

Existence and Life Evaluators and Descriptors

THERE IS-ADA GOOD-BAIK, BAD-BURUK
LIVE-HIDUP, DIE-MA 77 BIG-BESAR, SMALL-KECIL

Determiners and Quantifiers Intensifier and augmentor

THIS-/7V7
THE SAME-( YANG) 5AMA, MORE-LAG/
OTHER-LA/TV
ONE-SATi/, TWO-Dt/A, Taxonomy, Partonomy, Similarity
MUCH/MANY-BANyA/C PART-BA 4G7A7V, KIND-/BN/5
SOME-BEBERAPA, A.LL-SEMUA LIKE-MACAM

Notes
1 . For helpful comments and advice I would like to thank Nick Enfield, Hazidi Abdul
Hamid, participants in the Symposium on The Semantics of Emotions held at Aus-
tralian National University in 1999, and the editors and reviewers of this volume.
2. Even though its anatomical sense is 'liver', hati is not altogether unconnected with
the heart. For example, the verb debar 'beating of the heart' can be combined with
hati, in the expression berdebar hati, roughly, 'to thrill with feeling, to have one's
heart throb with feeling'.
3. This is not as straightforward an assumption as it may seem. The complicating fac-
tor is that one may form any number of causative expressions which have hati as ob-

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 Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion 193

ject, without the need for any comparable fixed expression. For example, one may
form the expressions menggembirakan hati (from gembira 'happy, thrilled') and
membahagiakan hati (from bahagia 'happy, content in life'). These look exactly
parallel with menyenangkan hati but there are no fixed expressions *gembira hati
and *bahagia hati, corresponding to senang hati. Nor (consequently) could you de-
scribe a person as *bergembira hati or *berbahagia hati, though one can describe a
person as bersenang hati. In view of these facts, it is not necessarily the case that ex-
pressions like menyenangkan hati and memuaskan hati (for example) are based di-
rectly on the fixed expressions senang hati andpuas hati. Even so, semantically the
alignment does seem to hold; that is, menyenangkan hati means 'to make someone
senang hati', memuaskan hati means 'to make someone puas hati'.
4. The meaning is different if senang 'at ease, comfortable' is applied attributively; for
example, Hati saya tak berapa senang 'My hati isn't very at-ease'. This usage sug-
gests the transient state of the experiencer's hati, and would be appropriate in repor-
ting a reaction to an event. For example, in (a) below the protagonist is being faced
with unwelcome questioning from an older person (questions which, given Malay
cultural values, could not be ignored). In example (b), the protagonist is a child. The
disturbance to his senang hati is induced by his joining Koran-reading classes for
the first time, and encountering his new strict teacher Tuan Syed.
(58) a. "Siapa? Saya?" tanya Hilmy, memperhatikan muka orang lua itu tepat-
tepat. Hatinya tidak begitu senang ditanya-tanya begitu waktu sedang
sibuk-sibuk bekerja.
' "Who? Me?" retorted Hilmy looking fixedly at the face of the old man. He
didn't feel too comfortable being questioned while he was busy working.'
b. Hati teman tak berapa senang juga melihat Tuan Syed buat kali pertama-
petang tu.
Ί was not very happy to see Tuan Syed for the first time that afternoon.'

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