In Part I of this blogpost on Linguistic Encounters, we saw how a VOC administrator attempted to translate the sacred language of Arabic into the European vernacular of the Dutch language in the context of the VOC’s philological and missionary enterprise. There, I showed how interlinear translations can invoke a sense of closeness, through familiar terms of comparison in Biblical understandings of Creation.[iv] However, not every linguistic encounter leads to closeness or connections. Some can create distance and alienation.

Petrus van der Vorm’s Malay interlinear translation of the Arabic translation of the Book of Genesis can point us in many different directions. Clearly, in this case, we are seeing a translation of a translation: the Arabic verses are translations from the Hebrew, collaboratively produced by two men of unknown origins; and the Malay is the Dutch pastor’s word-for-word translation of the Arabic translation for the purposes of translating the Bible into Malay. Curiously, unlike other translations from Arabic to Malay, almost none of the Malay words Van der Vorm chose in his interlinear translation are Arabic cognates; in fact, he seems to have carefully avoided using Arabic terms altogether, except when Allah was mentioned. Furthermore, it seems that Van der Vorm might have been relying on his knowledge of either Hebrew or the Dutch translation of the Hebrew Bible to translate some of the Arabic words into Malay.

Arabic Translation of Hebrew

Awwalu mā khalaqa Allāhu al-samā'u wa al-arḍu wa kānat al-arḍu tahiyyatan bāhiyyatan wa al-ẓalāmu 'alā wajhi al-ghamri wa al-rīḥatu al-'aẓīmatu tahubbu 'alā wajhi al-mā'i.^[v]

[English Translation: First what Allah created was the heaven and the earth and the earth was desolate and empty and the darkness was on the surface of the inundation and the mighty wind blew over the surface of the water.]

Malay Interlinear Translation of the Arabic Translation

Pertama yang dijadikan Allah itulah langit dan bumi; dan adalah bumi itu hampa lagi sunyi dan kelamlah di atas muka arungan dan angin yang amat besar bertiuplah di atas muka air.[vi]

[English Translation: First that which was created by Allah was the sky and the earth; and the earth was empty and desolate and the darkness was over the surface of oceanic crossings and the wind that was very big blew over the surface of the water.]

The Arabic words “tahiyyatan bāhiyyatan” (Image 2) are almost impossible to translate without knowing their corresponding Hebrew words of similar root, “tohu wa-bohu,” which were commonly translated as “desolate and empty” in English and “woest en ledig” in Dutch.^[vii] Van der Vorm’s Malay interlinear translation reads “hampa lagi sunyi” (empty and desolate), corresponding to the common Dutch translation of “tohu wa-bohu.”^[viii] While this invites more questions than answers, the translation of “tahiyyatan bāhiyyatan” into the Malay “hampa lagi sunyi” might point to intermediating languages not explicitly on the page: the hint of Hebrew words “tohu wa-bohu” and the common Dutch translation of the Hebrew as “woest en ledig.” It is perhaps the form of the interlinear translation itself that not only forces the Arabic derivation of Hebrew words to correspond directly with Malay, but also creates a sense of ambiguous distance, bringing the intermediating language of Dutch as well as the original Hebrew between the lines of one’s reading.

Figure 2. The first few verses from Petrus van der Vorm’s Malay interlinear translation of the Arabic translation of the Book of Genesis. BSS, Cod.arab.233, f. 2v. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00018809?page=11.

Linguistic encounters in the process of creating interlinear translations can create a sense of closeness as well as distance, as one sees how other languages lurk in the interpretive gaps between translations. While the Arabic to Malay translation is word for word, one seemingly having a direct relationship to another, other languages come into play as Arabic is deposed from its usual place of authority.[i] Layers of translation across multiple linguistic boundaries are embedded in this one copy of the Book of Genesis, some visible, others invisible. For indeed a translator, too, can summon his or her own multilingual “prior texts” in the process of translation, manifested in silence or perhaps in this case, in the barely audible trace of similar roots and of meandering meanings.[ii] While comparative readings between the two copies of Van der Vorm’s interlinear translations will require continued research, this brief example, I hope, demonstrates how interlinear translations, as a form, open up new ways of interpreting cross-cultural and cross-lingual interactions, both in the past and in the present.

Works Cited

Primary Sources

München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab.233.

Cambridge University Library, Or. 193.

Secondary Sources

Becker, A.L. “Silence across Languages.” In Beyond Translation: Essays toward a Modern Philology, 283-294. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Collins, James T. “A Book and a Chapter in the History of Malay: Brouwerius’ Genesis (1697) and Ambonese Malay,” Archipel 67 (2004): 77-127.

Kister, Menahem. “Tohu wa-Bohu, Primordial Elements and Creatio ex Nihilo,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 14:3 (2007): 229-256.

Swellengrebel, J.L.  In Leijdeckers Voetspoor: Anderhalve Eeuw Bijbelvertaling en Taalkunde in de Indonesische Talen. ’S-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.

Wieringa, Edwin. “Arabisch-Malaiische Genesis, Arabic-Malay Genesis.” In Die Wunder der Schöpfung: Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek aus dem islamischen Kulturkreis (The Wonders of Creation: Manuscripts of the Bavarian State Library from the Islamic world), edited by Helga Rebhan, 58. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010.

The manuscript, now preserved in the Vatican Library (Vat.ind.7), is labeled “Malay Lexicon and Grammar.”^[i] According to Dr. Bart Jaski, a VOC translator named Cornelis Mutter, who had once been commissioned to assist in the Malay translation of the Bible in Batavia in 1698, likely sent this manuscript, along with many others, to the Dutch scholar Adriaan Reland (1676-1718) in Utrecht.^[ii] While Mutter had once owned this manuscript, he likely did not write in it. A close inspection of Vat.ind.7 reveals that it has two parts, each written in a different hand, neither of which belonged to Mutter: first, a Malay-Dutch lexicon, a scrupulous listing of words in Malay and Dutch in alphabetical order; second, an incomplete explanation of Arabic grammar, which includes a word-for-word interlinear translation from Arabic to Dutch. The interlinear translation was titled, “A grammatical exercise of the Arabic language, on the 64th Chapter of the Quran, which is titled, the Chapter of Fraudulence” (Figure 2).^[iii] The purpose of this interlinear translation, then, was to assist Dutch learners interested in basic Arabic grammar, presumably in the Dutch East Indies.

Unlike most interlinear translations made by Islamic authority figures in the archipelago, the VOC administrator, in this case, wrote the Dutch interlinear translation above the Arabic:

Dutch Interlinear Translation

Hij is dewelke ú geschapen heeft en onder d’ úwe (zijn) ongelovige en onder d’ úwe heeft men gelovige, ende god (is) over t’gene dat gijlieden doet ziende. Hij heeft geschapen de Hemelen en d'aarde, in der waarhijt ende hij heeft úl[en] geformt, en moy of goed gem[aak]t úwe gedaante, en tot hem is de toekomst.^[iv]

[English translation: He is the one who has created you and among you (are) unbelievers and among you one has believers, and god (is) seeing over that which you do. He has created the Heavens and the earth in the truth and he has formed you and made your form beautiful or good, and to him is the arrival.]

Arabic from the Second and Third Verses

Huwa al-ladhī khalaqakum faminkum kāfirun wa minkum mu’minun wa Allāhu bimā ta’malūna baṣīrun. Khalaqa al-samawāti wa al-arḍi bi al-ḥaqqi wa ṣawwarakum wa aḥsana ṣuwarakum wa ilayhi al-maṣīru.^[v]

[English translation: He is the one who created you, though among you are unbelievers and among you are believers, and Allah is all-seeing in what you do. He created the heavens and the earth with truth and formed you and made your form good and to him is the place of destination.]

Word-for-word translations, for instance, of khalaqa as “heeft geschapen” (has created), al-samawāt as “de Hemelen” (the Heavens), al-arḍ as “d’aarde” (the earth), and aḥsana ṣuwarakum as “moy of goed gem[aak]t úwe gedaante” (made your form beautiful or good), all point to familiar terms of comparison in biblical understandings of Creation, with slight variations. Here, it is the Dutch language that bends towards Arabic, bringing the vernacular to align more closely with the sacred language. While “de Hemel” (the Heaven) in the singular is more common in the Dutch translation of Genesis, the translator would faithfully render al-samawāt as “de Hemelen” (the Heavens),  specifying in the grammatical explanation of individual Arabic terms, that al-samawāt was the plural form of the singular noun “samā’ the Heaven [de Hemel], from the root samawa.”^[vi] Moreover, rather than translating aḥsana ṣuwarakum as “made your form good,” the translator would add another adjective “moy” (beautiful), which hews closely to other meanings stemming from the same Arabic root. Choosing this particular surah as a “grammatical exercise of the Arabic language” over other, more popular surahs in the archipelago likely highlights its intended readers and students in the Dutch East Indies: VOC administrators, likely all familiar with the Dutch Bible, who were interested in learning Arabic with a textual guide in Dutch.

Figure 2. The second page of the VOC administrator’s grammatical exercise from Arabic to Dutch. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.ind.7, f. 115v.

This blogpost showed how a VOC administrator stationed in the archipelago attempted to translate the sacred language of Arabic into a European vernacular. In the VOC’s philological and missionary enterprise, administrators used the form of the interlinear translation for various reasons, in this case, to provide a pedagogical exercise to train Dutch administrators interested in learning Arabic grammar. These linguistic encounters can invoke to a sense of closeness, as one sees how one language bends to conform to the other. In the second part of this blogpost, I will discuss another VOC administrator’s efforts to provide a Malay interlinear translation of the Arabic translation of the Hebrew Bible, a linguistic encounter that creates distance. Whether such textual encounters have led to a crossing of cultural and religious boundaries between historical actors of vastly different backgrounds in the context of Dutch imperialism is a question that remains to be answered.

Works Cited

Primary Sources

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.ind.7.

Secondary Sources

Jaski, Bart. “The Manuscript Collection of Adriaan Reland in the University Library of Utrecht and Beyond.” In The Orient in Utrecht: Adriaan Reland (1676-1718), Arabist, Cartographer, Antiquarian and Scholar of Comparative Religion, edited by Bart Jaski, Christian Lange, Anna Pytlowany, and Henk J. van Rinsum, 321-361. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2021.

Jaski, Bart. “Appendix 2: The Manuscript Collection of Adriaan Reland.” In The Orient in Utrecht: Adriaan Reland (1676-1718), Arabist, Cartographer, Antiquarian and Scholar of Comparative Religion, edited by Bart Jaski, Christian Lange, Anna Pytlowany, and Henk J. van Rinsum, 434-484. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2021.

In contrast to the first two pages, which prominently display motifs resembling European baroque ornamentation (image 1), the last two pages show locally styled cartouches, with indigenous floral motifs, geometric designs with triangular crowns and diagonals, as well as a succession of finial-tipped lines and curves radiating from the borders (image 2).[ii] Significantly, the penultimate page displays four protective Seals of Solomon, which Annabel Teh Gallop has identified as the "Ring of Solomon" in Malay (cincin Suleiman).[iii] The final two pages, moreover, exhibit the last two surahs of the Qur’ān, Sūrat al-Falaq and Sūrat al-Nās, referred to as the two verses of protection, or al-mu‘awwidhatayn. These verses seek the protection of Allah from evils of many kinds, and they both begin in the same way: “Say: I seek the protection of the Lord…” While there are many differences between the Arabic and the Malay vernacular translation of the two surahs, three particular verses caught my attention.

The imam of Tomilehu, Batou Langkaij (likely Batu Langkai or Langkawi), had copied the fourth verse of Sūrat al-Falaq in the following way: 

Arabic: “wa min sharri al-naffāthāti fī al-‘uqudi [sic]”[iv] 

[English: and from the evil of the blowers upon the knots]

The interlinear translation reads: 

Malay translation with some Arabic: “dan daripada kejahatan mantra sihir yang dimembisikkannya [sic] pada sipulan [sic] tali yang disimpul aw siḥr.”[v]

[English: and from the evil of the mantra of sorcery that has been whispered onto the knotting of a rope that is knotted, or sorcery]

Here, the translator has expanded on the original “evil of the blowers upon the knots” with “the evil of the mantra of sorcery that has been whispered onto the knotting of a rope.” It elides the feminine plural of al-naffāthāti–women who blow or spit on knots to perform a curse or to cast a spell. In addition to changing the act of blowing (or spitting) to an act of whispering, the translator has used two passive Malay verbs (to be whispered and to be knotted) in a verse that did not contain any verbs. Furthermore, the focus is not on the female actors but on the manifestation of the act itself as “the mantra of sorcery,” from which believers are instructed to seek the protection of Allah. While we cannot be certain, perhaps such interpretations shed light on everyday concerns about keeping oneself safe from sihir (from the Arabic siḥr), sorcery or black magic–the translator’s summary interpretation of the verse as a whole. Allowing this translation to contextualize the visual elements on the page, the protective Seals of Solomon in the four corners of the cartouche come to have added layers of meaning.  

A close reading of this third verse from Sūrat al-Falaq can also help us to understand the translator’s readings of specific words from other verses. For instance, he had already used a form of the Malay word for whisper (bisik), as we saw above. The fourth and the fifth verses of Sūrat al-Nās implores believers to seek the protection of Allah from the evil of the whisperer who whispers. The two verses were separated and copied as follows:

            Arabic: “min sharri al-waswās / al-khannās al-ladhī yuwaswisu fī ṣudūr al-nās”[vi]

[English: from the evil of the whisperer / the withdrawer who whispers in the hearts of mankind]

The translator would, however, render these verses as:

Malay: “daripada segala kejahatan waswas / shaytan yang indari aqil disebut dhikr Allah kan lutuh ia lagi memberi waswas pada segala hati manusia”[vii]

[English: from the evils of misgivings / Satan who evades the intellect called the remembrance of Allah, shall he strike again to put misgivings into the hearts of mankind]

Rather than translating “the whisperer” and “to whisper” into Malay, the translator has used the Arabic-derived Malay term waswas, which can mean worry, anxiety, doubt, even suspicion. There is a possibility that the Arabic waswās and the Malay waswas, while related as loan words and now false friends, influenced the translator’s reading and interpretation of the verses. In other words, rather than rendering the Arabic into Malay, he seems to have read the Malay back into the Arabic. Furthermore, the translator has elaborated on al-khannās–literally one who withdraws, referring to the devil–by adding that Satan is one who keeps a distance from dhikr Allah (rememberance of Allah). This addition seems to provide a practical, everyday solution to the devil and his evil influence: perform and maintain dhikr Allah to keep him away.