Manglish
Manglish (or sometimes
Malglish or
Mangled English) is the colloquial version of the
English language as spoken in
Malaysia and it is a portmanteau of the word Malay and English. The Malaysian Manglish is sometimes known as Rojak or
Rojak Language.
Manglish shares substantial linguistic similarities with
Singaporean English (Singlish) in
Singapore, although distinctions can be made, particularly in vocabulary. One noticeable difference is that "don't know" in Singlish is "donno", whereas in Manglish, "don't know" (pronounced "dontch know") is used, although neither is confined entirely to one country or the other.
Initially, "Singlish" and "Manglish" were essentially the same language, when Singapore and Malaysia were a single geographic entity:
Malaya. In old Malaya, English was the language of the British administration whilst Malay was spoken as the lingua franca of the street. Thus, even the Chinese would revert to Malay when speaking to Chinese people who did not speak the same Chinese dialect.
Theoretically, English as spoken in Malaysia is based on
British English and called
Malaysian English. British spelling is generally followed. However, the influence of
American English modes of expression and slang is strong, particularly among Malaysian youth.
Since
1968,
Malay, or
Bahasa Melayu, has been the country's sole official language. While English is widely used, many Malay words have become part of common usage in informal English or Manglish. An example is suffixing sentences with
lah, as in, "Don't be so worried-lah", which is usually used to present a sentence as rather light-going and not so serious, the suffix has no specific meaning. Although Chinese dialects also make abundant use of the suffix
lah and there is some disagreement as to which language it was originally borrowed from. There is also a strong influence from
Mandarin,
Cantonese,
Hokkien, and
Tamil, which are other major dialects and languages spoken in Malaysia. Manglish also uses some anachronistic British terms from the era of British colonisation (see "gostan" and "outstation" below).
| Word | Meaning | Example | | lah | Used to affirm a statement (similar to "of course"). Frequently used at the end of sentences and usually ends with an exclamation mark (!). | Don't be an idiot lah! |
| mah | Used to affirm a sentence but not as strongly as "lah". Used at the end of sentences. | She's like that mah.. |
| nah | Derived from the Malay expression of "Nah!". Used when giving something to another person. | Nah, take this! |
| meh | Used when asking questions, especially when a persion is skeptical of something. | Really meh? |
| liao | Means "already" | No more stock liao. |
| ah | Derived from the Chinese expression "a". Used at the end of sentences, unlike meh the question is rhetorical. Also used when asking a genuine question. Besides that, some people use it when referring to a subject before making a (usually negative) comment. | Why is he like that ah?Is that true ah?
My brother ah, always disturb me! |
| lor | Used when explaining something. | Like that lor! |
| leh | Used to soften an order, thus making it less harsh | Give me that leh. |
| one | Used as an emphasis at the end of a sentence. | Why is he so naughty one (ah)? |
| what | Unlike British/American English, the word 'what' is often used as an exclamation mark, not just to ask a question. | What! How could you do that?
I didn't take it, what. |
| got | Used as a literal translation from the Malay word 'ada'. The arrangement of words is often also literally translated. This particular particle is widely abused in Manglish, mainly because of the difficulty for the Manglish speaker of comprehending the various correct uses of the English verb 'to have'. Therefore, 'got' is substituted for every tense of the verb. | You got anything to do? (Kamu ada apa-apa untuk buat?)I got already/got/will got my car from the garage. |
Speakers of Manglish from the country's different ethnic groups tend to intersperse varying amounts of expressions or interjections from their mother tongue - be it
Malay,
Chinese or
Indian - which, in some cases, qualifies as a form of
code-switching.
Verbs or adjectives from other languages often have English
affixes, and conversely sentences may be constructed using English words in another language's syntax. People tend to translate phrases directly from their first languages into English, for instance, "on the light" instead of
"turn on the light".
Due to exposure to other languages and dialects, particularly within the national school system, members of a particular ethnic group may be familiar with phrases or expressions originating from languages other than their mother tongue and may, in fact, apply them in their daily speech, regardless of the ethnicity of their audience. This is especially true in the case of interjections and vulgar slang.
Of late, Malaysians have been more creative and more Malay and Chinese words have been converging with English words. It's very simple, just find a Malay verb, and add the word "-ing", "-fied", "-able" etc.
Nouns
*"barsket" - derived from 'bastard', general derogatory term. May also be derived from 'basket case'.
*"bladibarsket" - derived from 'bloody bastard', profane derogatory term.
*"kapster" - a nosy or talkative person; can be also used as an adjective, e.g., "I hate them because they are so
kapster." Contraction of the Malay verb "cakap",
to speak, plus
-ster (probably from analogy with English words such as "trickster").
*"maluation" - embarrassment, from
Malay "malu" + English
"-ation".
*"outstation" - out of town (e.g., going
outstation).
*"terrer" - (pronounced as the English "terror") Refers to someone or something being awesomely amazing or good (e.g., "Bloody hell, that guy is
terrer!").
Adjectives
*"aiksy/lan si" - arrogant, overconfident. 'Aiksy' possibly derived from 'acting up'; 'lan si' is of Cantonese origin.
*"blur" - confused, out-of-it. Roughly equivalent to "spacey" in
American slang.
*"slumber" - relaxed, laid-back; possibly a conflation of the Malay "selamba", meaning nonchalant, and the English "slumber".
Verbs
*"business" - a euphemism for bodily functions conducted in the toilet. One can do big business or small business.
*"cabut/cantas" - to run off, flee or to escape ('Cabut' is a Malay word meaning to pull or pulling out as a
transitive verb, or to become detached as an
intransitive verb.)
*"gostan" - reverse a vehicle, apparently from the
nautical term "go astern" (mostly used in Kelantan, Kedah and Penang). Sometimes also expressed as "gostan balik" (lit.,
reverse back).
*"jadi" - happened, succeeded (derived from the Malay word 'jadi', and may sometimes mean 'so' as in,
"Jadi?" = "So what?")
*"jalan" - to walk (Malay)
*"kantoi" - to get caught ("I kena
kantoi..." means, "I got shafted/reprimanded/caught")
*"kena" - to get caught/punished; often used like a noun ("I sure
kena if I cheat"). From the Malay passive verb "kena".
*"kill" - to punish/scold/cause trouble to someone ("If you're not careful ah, this guy will
kill you")
*"makan" - to eat (Malay)
*"minum" - to drink (Malay)
*"on/off" - to
turn something on or off, respectively (e.g. "Don't forget to
off the fan.")
*"pengsan" - to faint (Malay)
*"pon" - to skip school/play truant (from Malay "ponteng", meaning the same)
*"saman" - to issue a traffic ticket, from "
summons"
*"sit" - since this is the word used for riding in a vehicle in Malay and in Chinese dialects, it is used in the same way in English, e.g.
"sit bus"
*"tahan" - to stand, to bear ("Cannot tahan her perfume! So strong!"). From Malay "tahan", to endure, to withstand.
*"tumpang-ing" - riding in someone else's vehicle or lodging at someone else's house, from the
Malay verb
"tumpang" + "-ing"
*(any Malay word) + "ing" - doing a certain action (
"Tengah makan" or "I'm eating right now" is shortened to
"Makan-ing")
Exclamations
*"alamak" - exclamation of surprise or shock.
*"best/syok" - indicates the object as superlatively good. "Syok/shiok" is from the
Hokkien word for sexual arousal or pleasure. (Shiok is also a chain of
novelty shops, although it could also be possible that the word stems from the English word "shock" in the context of seeing something shocking).
*"die/finish/gone/habis/mampus/mampui/sei(死)" - generic exclamations to indicate "trouble", used like the English "damn it" or "to face the music" (e.g. Today he
die because of that
loan shark).
"sei" is usually pronounced as its
Hokkien equivalent, "see".
Grammar
*"(Subject + predicate), is it?" - this is often used as a question. "It" doesn't refer to the subject, but rather to the entire preceding clause ("Is it so?") This is comparable to the French phrase "n'est-ce pas?" (literally "isn't it?")
The word is also used to describe the colloquial
South Indian–accented English that is often interlarded with
Malayalam.
Manglish (
manga in English) is also the name of an interactive cartoon feature in the
Mainichi Daily News, Japan's major English-language online newspaper.
Manga, or Japanese comics, are displayed on the Web site in their original format, but English translations of the Japanese characters can be seen by mousing over the
speech balloons. http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/entertainment/etc/manglish/index.html
*
British and Malaysian English differences*
The Amazing Cultural Insight Learning Malaysian English.
