ANALYSIS OF LOANWORDS IN TEXT OF JOHORE STATE CONSTITUTION 1312H (1895)

The Johore State Constitution (JSC), promulgated in the year 1312H corresponding with the year 1895CE, is the first written constitution in Malaya. Its status as the first written constitution was agreed upon by previous scholarly studies. This research focuses on loanwords used in the text of the JSC, based on the dependence of the Malay language on loanwords as stated in a study by Amran Kasimin and M.A.J Beg. This is a qualitative study which uses a historical study approach. Data is collected from legal text kept in the National Archives of Malaysia. Data is comparatively analyzed using secondary works to validate the words. This study finds that loanwords exist in the text of the JSC, by as much as 11.1% from the Arabic language and 0.09% from the English language. This situation shows that at the end of the 19th Century CE corresponding with the date the text was drafted, adoption of English language did not prevail in official documents, and in fact, was not required in the process of drafting the text of the JSC.