THE MINANGKABAU VARIANT MORPHOLOGY REVEALING THE INTEGRITY OF THE MINANGS ABROAD

This study seeks to describe the Minangkabau variant morphology that encompasses the study data in the Peninsular Malaysia. The Minangkabau variant (VM) adopted in this study involves areas in the state of Selangor (Hulu Langat, Batang Kali and Beranang), Negeri Sembilan (Jelebu and Kuala Pilah) and Pahang (Bentong). This study is conducted by obtaining the word data through an interview with the informant. The writer had conducted a face-to-face interview by recording the stories from the informant to obtain the Minangkabau variant data. Early studies have discovered that although this informant had moved from his hometown in Sumatera and started his new life abroad, their lexical and words in their recorded conversations still showed a clear Minangkabau variant. The finding shows that the Minangkabau variant morphology shares a lot of similarities with Malay Language, for instance the morphology of the prefix ‘ba’ in VM becomes ‘ber’ in BM (Malay Language), making the word ‘bacampua’ become ‘bercampur’.