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A [popular theory](https://says.com/my/lifestyle/did-you-know-that-the-
japanese-also-use-the-malay-expression-alamak) claims that that the Japanese
expression あらまあ is directly related to the Malay _alamak_ (pronounced more or
less identically, since the "k" is just a glottal stop), with speculation
about which one came first and how it was imported (Malay traders in Japan,
Japanese soldiers in Malaya during WW2, etc).

**Is there a known etymology in Japanese, and/or evidence of use before the
1940s?**

My uninformed opinion: あらまあ sounds to me like a portmanteau of あらあら and まあまあ,
which are similar expressions of condolences/sympathy.
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etymology false-etymology false-cognates
Is あらまあ linked to Malay "alamak", and which came first?
From the entry of
[精選版日本国語大辞典](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%82%E3%82%89%E3%81%BE%E3%81%82-428056):

> ※闇桜（1892）〈樋口一葉〉「あらマア何(どう)しませうねへ」

So the word form is attested at least since late 19th century.

As you said, this is a combination of あら + まあ.
[あら](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%82%E3%82%89-427730) can be traced back to
the 10th century and [まあ](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%BE%E3%81%82-632683)
to the 18th century with basically the same meaning as in today (interjection
of amazement).

> ※落窪（１０Ｃ後）一「あらことごとし」
>
> ※洒落本・妓者呼子鳥（1777）四「そりゃアマアほんの事かへ」

Thus it should be natural to assume that it has developed independently from
the Malay phrase, and their resemblance is a coincidence. Of course, one can
argue that the either side of people learned the specific word used in the
other and mimicked the phrase by a novel combination of native components, but
that would be difficult to prove or disprove.
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The ["popular theory" linked from the
question](https://says.com/my/lifestyle/did-you-know-that-the-japanese-also-
use-the-malay-expression-alamak) suggests both that the Japanese expression
may have come from the Malay, or that the Malay expression may have come from
from the Japanese.

# The Japanese あらまあ ( _ara mā_ )

[Broccoli's
answer](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/76645/is-%E3%81%82%E3%82%89%E3%81%BE%E3%81%82-linked-
to-malay-alamak-and-which-came-first#answer-76646) covers the Japanese. In
short: あらまあ is purely Japanese, composed of purely Japanese elements and
formulated in a purely Japanese word-formation pattern. Any influence from
Malay is vanishingly unlikely.

# The Malay _alamak_

For this to come from Japanese, we have to ask, "where did that final //-k//
come from?"

There is no apparent mechanism for this: there is no //-k// in the Japanese,
nor is there any likely longer Japanese phrase where a following word after
あらまあ might start with a //k-//, since this Japanese expression is
phonologically a standalone. So a borrowing appears to be ruled out purely on
phonological grounds.

An internal Malay derivation may make more sense.

As described [over at Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alamak), this
is probably a combination of _Allah_ ("Allah, God") + _mak_ ("mother"), an
expression of surprise, in similar fashion to Spanish _madre de Dios_ , Dutch
_moeder van God_ , or Arabic أُمُّ اللهِ‎ ( _ʾummu llāhi_ ).
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