A Shift in Direct Imperatives in the Malay Translation of Al-Qur’an

Abstract

Translation in general is an activity of information transfer from a source language to a target language such as from Arabic into the Malay language. During the transfer process, usually occurs a shift in translation between the language systems of the source and target texts. In relation to this, a research was conducted to examine the structure of imperative verbs in the translation of the Qur’an into the Malay language. Surah an-Nisa’, the fourth chapter of the Qur’an was used as the research data. Based on the observation, 82 imperative verbs have been found in this chapter. This comparative analysis between Malay and Arabic grammar refers to the Malay Imperative Verbs by Asmah Haji Omar (2009) and Imperative Category in Arabic by Yasin Jasim al-Muhaimid (2001). The analysis shows that the translation of imperatives causes two types of shifts. The first is the original form of imperative verbs in Arabic, such as additional inflections and particles. An example is, ‘Dan berikanlah kepada wanita-wanita itu mahar mereka sebagai pemberian yang wajib’ (S004A019). The verb ‘beri’ (to give) is a translation from the word ‘أتى’ in Arabic, where there occurs the additional of particle -lah in the translation. The second shift is the change of imperative verb class in Arabic into Malay, for example, ‘Maka hendaklah kamu adakan saksi-saksi mereka’(S004A006). The word ‘استشهد’ originally is a verb to mean ‘mempersaksi’ (to witness) but the translation has shifted to a noun (witnesses). This shows that in certain cases, the translation of the Qur’an does not abide the grammatical system of the source text language; instead, it is influenced by the target text language grammatical system.