makan (English)

Where does "makan" come from?

The English verb 'makan', meaning 'to eat'[1], is an unadapted borrowing from Malay 'makan'[1]. The Malay term traces its ancestry back through Proto-Malayic '*makan' to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian '*kaən' and Proto-Austronesian '*kaən'[2], with a historical presence recorded in the Talang Tuo inscription from 684 AD in the Old Malay form 'mākan'[2].

Open questions

• The deep ancestral forms in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and Proto-Austronesian are linguistic reconstructions rather than directly attested historical spellings. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Full etymology tree

• makan (English), 'To eat.'
  • borrowed makan (Malay), 'to eat'
    • inherited *makan (Proto-Malayic), 'to eat (consume)'
      • inherited *kaən (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian), 'to eat (consume)'
        • inherited *kaən (Proto-Austronesian), 'to eat'

Ancestors

• makan (Malay)

Sources

1. makan (English) - Wiktionary
2. makan (Malay) - Wiktionary
3. kaən (Proto-Malayo-Polynesian) - Wiktionary
4. kaən (Proto-Austronesian) - Wiktionary
5. makan (Proto-Malayic) - Wiktionary

Updated August 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris