Jurutera

I am not an expert in the Malay language; I am more of a critic. It somewhat hurts me to see the influx of English words into the Malay vocabulary, especially when there is a Malay equivalent. For example; destination in Malay is destinasi and transaction is transaksi. I don’t see the need for such words when we already have ‘tujuan’ and ‘urusan’. I can go on and on so I better not start. I wrote a piece on the Malay language [here].

Today I want to talk about this Malay term – JURU.

My understanding of the term is that it denotes ‘the person who does something’.

For example; ‘rawat’ is nurse so a jururawat is a person who nurses. Jurukamera is a cameraman because he deals with a kamera (camera) and juruwang is a cashier because he deals with wang, wang is money and cashiers deal with money. Juruterbang is a pilot because terbang is fly and pilots fly, an aeroplane. Juruhias decorates as hias means decorate. Jurusolek does your make up.

My question is what is a TERA? If JURU means a person who does something, a jurutera is a person who ‘tera’.

What the fish is a tera???