This paper reveals that the negators in most Malayic varieties -such as tidak, nda', nyanda, ngga' in some Malay varieties- are in fact complex words historically. Consequently, any attempt to reconstruct the historical origin of such words has to take into account all aspects of the analysis: phonological, morphosyntactic and semantic. But, traces from the morphosyntactic and semantic analysis have been lost for the most part in many Malay varieties (cf. Standard Malay). However, some significant paths have still been preserved in the Ibanic subgroup of west Borneo, among which Mualang is usually included.

With insights from the relatively rich variety of negators in Mualang, the origin of words such as the Indonesian tidak and Betawi Malay ngga' can be traced back to: how it was that Malayic speakers came to create negators in their language in the first place? What was the rationale behind negating a sentence in their minds? This study reveals that most of the main negators in Malayic varieties were composed of the proclitic ni- and a particular verb, involving phonological and semantic changes.