User:Patrick Voon/sandbox

A comment on Wikipedia's article about SARAWAK.

This commentary relates to the current explanation of the origin of the name of the State/Country SARAWAK and a proposal for change.

Present text: The generally-accepted explanation of the state's name is that it is derived from the Sarawak Malay word serawak, which means antimony. A popular alternative explanation is that it is a contraction of the four Malay words purportedly uttered by Pangeran Muda Hashim (uncle to the Sultan of Brunei), "Saya serah pada awak" (I surrender it to you), when he gave Sarawak to James Brooke, an English explorer in 1841. James Brooke later became the first of the White Rajah dynasty to govern Sarawak.[17] However, the latter explanation is incorrect: the territory had been named Sarawak before the arrival of James Brooke, and the word awak was not in the vocabulary of Sarawak Malay before the formation of Malaysia.[18]

Contention: As an explanation of the origin of the name of a sovereign State or Country, it is considered inappropriate that the text should include an accepted error (refer footnote 18).

Suggestion: That the rest of the paragraph be removed and leave the explanation as follows:

The generally-accepted explanation of the state's name is that it is derived from the Sarawak Malay word serawak, which means antimony.