ꦧꦶꦱ

Javanese

Etymology

According to Blust and Trussel, the word comes from the same Sanskrit विष (viṣa, poison) and is very widespread in the Philippines and both western and eastern Indonesia, acquiring a variety of secondary meanings including that of general force or power, skill, knowledge and ability. In Malay and some other languages (e.g. Rembong), this abstraction and generalization of the original concrete nominal sense has gone even further, leading to the use of bisa as an auxiliary verb meaning 'can, be able'.[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): (Standard Mataram) /bi.sɔ/
    • Rhymes: -sɔ
  • IPA(key): (Serang) /bi.sə/
    • Rhymes: -sə
  • Hyphenation: bi‧sa

Verb

ꦧꦶꦱ (bisa)

  1. (ngoko) can, able
    Synonym: (krama) ꦱꦒꦼꦢ꧀ (saged)

Alternative forms

Derived terms

  • ꦒꦸꦩꦶꦱ (gumisa)

Descendants

  • Peranakan Indonesian: iso
  • Malay: bisa
    • > Indonesian: bisa (inherited)

References

  1. ^ Robert Blust, Stephen Trussel (21 June 2020) “Loan - v”, in Austronesian Comparative Dictionary[1], retrieved 15 March 2022

Further reading

  • The Linguistic Center of Yogyakarta (2011) “bisa”, in Kamus Basa Jawa (Bausastra Jawa) [Javanese Language Dictionary (Javanese Dictionary)] (in Javanese), 2nd edition, Yogyakarta: Kanisius, →ISBN