Re: Malay for two: dua

On 2025-01-25 05:43:20 +0000, Ruud Harmsen said:

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 18:46:29 +0100: Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com>
scribeva:
 

Today I have been thinking about my childhood in Singapore nearly 80
years ago. Something that has puzzled me over the years has been the
Malay word for 2, dua, which looks remarkably like the Latin word for
2. I suppose that it's no more than a chance similarity, as it's hard
to imagine that such a basic word should have been borrowed from a
European language. But does anyone know?

 No, but I can look it up. Why didn't you?

Ross is expert on Malayo-Polynesian languages, and I have far more confidence in what he says than in what some unknown person says. Some of the definitions one finds on Wiktionary are fine; some are not.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dua#Malay
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dua#Indonesian
 So they're unrelated. It's a chance similarity.

Did you bother to read the earlier answers before repeating them?
--
Athel cb