109 in the word garu’an turned out to come from the word garukan, which was
shortened into garu’an. The same case also happened to the words ma’ci and mba’yu, which were shortened from the words banci and mbak ayu.
The writer saw that it was rather difficult to determine the host of the word mba’yu since all the words in the word mbak ayu were shortened. The same case
happened in the word ma’ci, which was shortened from the word banci to avoid the lay people to understand the speech of the speakers of Bahasa Binan. In other
words, it could be said the word ma’ci could only be understood and could convey a meaning when the morpheme “ma-“ and “-ci” were attached together. This
conclusion was also applied in the case of mba’yu since “mba-“ and “-yu” would not be able to stand alone unless they were attached together.
Those morphemes in fact also behaved as the morphemes that could not be attached to any other words. Therefore, “mba-” would be awkward if it was
attached to “-ci” as there was no word mba’ci exist in Bahasa Binan anyway. The same case also happened to the word ma’yu, which was semantically rejected by
the speakers of Bahasa Binan.
n. Backformation in Cockney and Bahasa Binan
Backformation is described as an anomaly process of word formation. This case is described perfectly in the English word “resurrect,” which is formed
after the word “resurrection” appears. Usually, the speakers of a language would form a noun after a verb is coined as it is seen in the word “develop,” which is
coined before the word “development.” The purpose of employing the process of backformation is many times for the sake of filling up the gap of communication
110 among the speakers that are lack of having the verb of a noun that exists before
the verb exists. Unfortunately, the writer found no case of backformation in the dictionary
of Bahasa Binan. However, the writer found some words that were designated as the examples of backformation phenomenon in Cockney. Some of the examples
of backformation in Cockney are described in Table 4.22.
Table 4.22: Backformation in Cockney
Word Meaning
Backformation
coat and badge cadger
cadge tin lid
yiddish yid
Table 4.22 depicts some words that were found as backformations in Cockney. In order to know whether the words underwent the process of
backformations or not, the writer employed dictionary check to the dictionary of English since the use of the words in Cockney were many times based on the
words in English. Therefore, the writer used its pair word in English to check whether a word in Cockney was a backformation or not. This process was
described clearly by looking at the word “coat and badge,” which meant “cadger” in English. It turned out that the word “cadger” underwent the process of
backformation from the word “cadge.” In other words, it could be said that the word “cadger” basically came before the word “cadge” existed.
The process of forming the noun “cadger” appeared as an anomaly since usually the processes of word formation by using the affix -er was done if a verb
“to cadge” appeared beforehand. This case of -er attachment was seen in the word
111 “baker,” which was formed by attaching the affix -er to the verb “to bake.”
However, it was seen that the formation of the word “cadger” was not preceded by the attachment of the affix -er to the verb “to cadge.” The word “cadger” in
fact appeared previously before the verb “to cadge” appeared. The same case also happened to the word “Yiddish,” which was
substituted by “tin lid” in Cockney. The word “Yiddish” in fact appeared abnormally since most of the time to form an adjective with the affix -ish, the
speakers of the language were required to attach the affix to a noun. However, the adjective “Yiddish” turned out to exist before the noun “Yid” existed. In other
words, it could be said that the occurrence of the word “Yiddish” did influence the occurrence of the word “Yid.”
o. Onomatopoeia in Cockney and Bahasa Binan
