Structure
A Malay's name consists of a personal name, which is used to address him or her in all circumstances, followed by a patronym. Most Malays do not use family names or surnames. In this respect, Malay names are similar to Icelandic naming conventions. For men, the patronym consists of the title bin (from Arabic بن, meaning 'son of') followed by his father's personal name. Thus, if Osman has a son called Musa, Musa will be known as Musa bin Osman. For women, the patronym consists of the title binti (from Arabic بنت, meaning 'daughter of') followed by her father's name. Thus, if Musa has a daughter called Aisyah, Aisyah will be known as Aisyah binti Musa. Upon marriage, a woman does not change her name, as is done in many cultures.
In the past it was not uncommon for a Malay to have more than one personal name, but in modern times Malay names may consist of two and sometimes three personal names. Some are taken from public figures around the world such as Mohammad Rifae Zidane, whose third personal name is taken from the famous footballer. The majority of Malay males have as their first name Mohammad or Muhammad, after the founder of Islam.
Read more about this topic: Malaysian Names, Malay Names
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
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The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part,
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“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
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