Jonathan Kew wrote:
> Yes, that's entirely possible, although the OED does define the > "standalone" word. Still, I'm familiar with this use of "bahasa" alone > from plenty of other contexts, too (sorry, I don't have citations on > hand) - though it could reasonably be argued that they're all examples > of elliptical usage. > > If such an elliptical usage becomes sufficiently well-established, > however, surely it has the effect of creating a new definition of the > shortened term. I'd suggest that the same thing has happened to the word > "American", for example, via the phrase "American English". Agreed. And much the same has happened with "creole", of course, although its extension does not define it as a specific language but instead as "[a] language that has developed from the mixing of two or more parent languages and has come to be the first language of a community, typically arising as the result of contact between the language of a dominant group (historically often a European colonizer) and that (or those) of a subordinate group (often the colonized people, or a slave population)." [Source: OED.Com] Philip Taylor
