HISTORY OF ENGLISH

MANGLISHA POST-COLONIAL ENGLISH

Professora Heliana MelloAluna: Andressa Rodrigues Gomide 2010033730

1. INTRODUCTION

Throughout Malaysia’s History, the country has been influenced of different cultures, peoples and especially, different languages. Although it is still possible to see the impact of this influence, English remains as the most important language in terms of diplomacy, technology and business. It is also present in the daily lives, in which there was not a complete switch to English, but an assimilation of languages. This paper aims at presenting a brief overview of how the Malaysian community uses the English language both in formal and informal situations as a consequence of being a multicultural society.

2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Malay, or Bahasa Malaysia as it is known in Malaysia, is spoken by about 40 million people and it is also the National language in Singapore and Brunei – where it is called Bahasa Melayu - and in Indonesia, where it is called Bahasa Indonesia. The oldest inscription of the language dates from the late 7th century and it had a great influence of Sanskrit, the Lingua Franca of Hinduism and Buddhism. It remained influent up to the 14th century, when the Islam began to heavily impact on the Malaysian society. At this time, Malay was used as a trade language and incorporated a mixture of Hindi, Arabic, Sanskrit and Tamil vocabulary. The European influence came only later on the 16th century with the Portuguese and the Dutch colonizers, bringing words such as ‘limau’ (lemon), ‘meja’ (table) and ‘rokok’ (cigarette). Since the English Empire came to Malaysia only on the 17th century, its major influence was on more recent vocabulary, especially those related to technology, like ‘komputer’.

Although the English impact on the lexicon was not as high as the previous languages, it is constantly used in the country and works as a bridge to the three main different cultures that coexist: the Malay, the Chinese and the Indian. It is also possible to notice the population uses on their daily lives some words that are consider old-fashioned or very formal by the British. To verify this, research on online corpora was carried according to the following procedures. Firstly, the word ‘afterwards’ was searched on the WebCorp Live (http://www.webcorp.org.uk/) within the Malaysian domain. Only entries in which spoken characteristics prevail were considered. Later, the same word was used on the British National Corpus (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/), a corpus composed of 100 words and collected between 1980 and 1993, which proved that ‘afterwards’ is more common in Written than Spoken language (Figure 2). Finally, using Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (1755)

(http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/), which contains terms that were used when the British Empire was in Malaysia, the same procedure was made. It revealed to be often used, as the example bellow demonstrates:

(1) Should the want of a cap or a cringe so mortally discompose him, as we find afterwards it did. L'Estrange.

1: Reviews in 76 cities 39 helpful votes “Dont say afterwards I didn't tell u” Reviewed 6 March 2012 best

2: in 2 cities 2 helpful votes “walking on air afterwards” Reviewed 16 February 2012 these guys are

3: Reviewed 5 August 2011 Hotel stay was nice...but afterwards was horrible! The hotel inadvertently took out

4: cities 2 helpful votes “We had a party there and afterwards we spent the night” Reviewed 21 July 2011

5: Reviewer 3 reviews 2 helpful votes “Fell Ill afterwards but okay food” Reviewed 23 January 2012 2 people

Figure 1: Results from WebCorp. They were all found in http://www.tripadvisor.com.my

Figure 2

3. GRAMMAR ASPECTS

A great part of Malaysian society knows how to use the so-called Standard English, however, Manglish, or non-standard English, is the most common choice of speakers. Although English is present in songs, TV, newspaper and school, not everybody has complete knowledge of the language and then, they resort on their national language, Malay, to express themselves in English. This can be observed by analysing the many Malay characteristics present in Manglish.

Grammatical gender does not occur in Malay, and so it happens in Manglish. Since there is no difference for she or he, or her or his, you may listen to Malaysian people saying he when they are actually referring to she.

Malay also does not make use of verb inflection for person and number, and they are not marked for tense as well. To express tense, adverbs such as ‘tomorrow’ or other indicators, such as belum (not yet), sudah (already) and akan (will) are used as in the examples from WebCorp:

1: I already eat halve before I took this picture

2: The waitress look at my plate and said:" you already eat, cannot change anymore. " Please dont even try

3: order and that the two tables that came after us already eat. She said that our order is begining to be

4: sorry we already booked our attraction trips, we already eat, i bought one just like it yesterday with a

1: try to find out more the next day. Since we have not yet eat, we went to the portuguese resturant on the

2: ....supper..... now lar... y wait until supper? i not yet eat dinner... picking wifey fr bigbadwolf books

3: Reply: akibat makan sushi =.=" dun scare la, u not yet eat crocroach,lizard ,bat still u like that oredi?

4: gathering I want go buy Mcd awhile.. Today I not yet eat lo.. I'll be right back.XD #920 Big Medium Small

1: Go Eat Out Official Blog Let's go eat out! We're so passionate about bringing all the

2: vote “Love the pizza! It's the first place I go eat when I come back to CA for a visit!”

3: got like that one? I also hungry what. Jom! We go eat some more. And if you think you’re a pro at

The way questions are done in Malay is also reflected in Manglish. There is no inversion and the chunk ‘or not’ at the end of the sentence is used instead. Most of the time this construction uses the modal ‘can’, even when it is not referred in the main part of the sentence, as it can be observed in the entries from WebCorp bellow:

1: for this item?maybe can reach here very fast..can or not?

2: yet, I am still alive and kicking, be patient, can or not? Azizan has a sharp tongue and can be snappish

3: i buy “shou wu wan”? if order it with e-store can or not? Chinese physician asnwer: Dear Chole Tam,

4: this sotfware????how can i get this software..it can or not???even have online or audio streamming..but i

The plural in Malay is made by repeating a word. Then the plural of ‘cikgu’ (teacher) is ‘cikgu-cikgu'. Since it is easier to add a letter 's' to the word, this feature is not preserved in Manglish for plural. However, it is used as an intensifier, as in the examples from Webcorp below:

1: WorldTraveller London 1 review 9 helpful votes “A big big lie! Avoid it if you look for a decent place to

2: diving) or go for golf or just enjoy the area. Big, big thank you for the very nice time. Tobi Stayed

3: Israel 1 review 7 helpful votes “Do your self a big big favor and dont fo there” Reviewed 6 September

4. PHONOLOGY

As for the pronunciation and intonation, Manglish differs from Standard English and sometimes may affect communication, especially among American Speakers. For instance, the fricatives [ ] and [ð] are pronounced as [t] and [d]θ respectively and the diphthongs [ ] and [o ] become [o] and the diphthong [e ]əʊ ʊ ɪ becomes [e]. Hence, the word ‘those’ [ð z] in Manglish is pronounced as [doz].əʊ The [t] can also be pronounced as a glottal stop in words like ‘cat’, and likewise in British English, is also used in words like ‘better’ instead of the American flapped form. It. Also differently from the American English, the h-dropping and the consonant-cluster reductions do not occur in Manglish. So words like ‘herbal’ are pronounced as [ h bl] and not as [ bl] and ˈ ɜː ˈɜː ‘new’ is [nju ] andː not [nu ].ː

Manglish is closer to British pronunciation than to the American one. This can be explained by the different times of colonization. As Laurier Bauer (2002) points, there is “a potential factor in distinguishing colonial varieties from their home counterparts in all levels of language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and lexis” also known as Colonial lag. When Malaysia was colonized, the British English had already evolved from what it had been during American colonization. So while American English pronounce ‘part’ as [p tr], Manglishɑː [p t], which is an evidence that Malaysian colonization happened after theɑː Received Pronunciation was established.

5. LEXICON

As for the vocabulary, Manglish has plenty of words and expressions from Malay, Chinese, Tamil and other languages and even a compound with words from different roots. The language in Malaysia has not only been influenced by English, but has also ‘lend’ some words to English.

The English language was set in Malaysia by the British colonizers; therefore its lexicon is much closer to British English than American English. However, in the past few years, due to the influence from the mass media, it has incorporated words from American English. Many words then are accepted in both forms as ‘lift ‘ and ‘elevator’, ‘lorry’ and ‘truck’, ‘chips’ and ‘crisps’, ‘fries’ and ‘chips’, ‘diaper’ and ‘nappy’.

Some words from Manglish come from English but present a different meaning like ‘to cut’,

(1) not stay on the right lane for so long, after cut the car I will back to middle lane back.

meaning ‘after overtaking the car’; ‘tuition teacher’, as in

(2) Contract Search Ads Home » Part Time » Part time tuition teacher Needed!

and ‘steamboat’, which is a meal where pieces of uncooked food are put into a pot of boiling water

(3) our stay in this hotel especially the fabulous steamboat dinner that came with the hotel package.

By analysing these English words with different meanings, we can also infer that some of them are still a vestige of the old usage, like the word ‘photostat’ that is used in Manglish as ‘photocopy’. Besides being a trademark, ‘photostat’ was an early projection photocopier created in the 1900s.

Other words like ‘ice kachang’ show a mixture between English (ice) and malay (kachang).

(4) on Facebook “muz tries are the duck rice and the ice kachang here ..very nice”

We can also find many non-English words in Manglish, like songkok (a Malay hat), malu (shy) and lepak (go out with friends), and many other words, especially those related to food and beverage.

A last group of vocabulary to be observed is the ones that have already been incorporated to Core English, like ‘typhoon’, ‘sari’, ‘agar’, ‘orang-utan’ and cheongsam’.

It is also important to notice the different expressions from Manglish like ‘lah’ (emphasis’ marker or solidarity), leh (wonder marker), (questioning marker), hah (asking for confirmation) and ah (asking for attention) that are present even in forma occasions.

6. FINAL REMARKS

Manglish is spread in Malaysia and Singapore, where is know as Singlish, and is considered by many as a creole language and also as ‘bad english’. Although Manglish is not encouraged at schools, you can hear students using it and sometimes even by teachers. It is interesting to notice that even though Manglish

may vary according to the regions and races, there is no intolerance to linguistic differences and everybody can understand each other.

REFERENCES

Bauer, Laurie (2002), An Introduction to international varieties of English: Edinburgh University Press

Omar, Asmah (2004), The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages & Literature: Editions Didier Millet

Rissanen et al (1992), History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics: Mouton de Gruyter

Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)http://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/ (accessed 7 June 2012)

APPENDIX

WordEnglish

translation From Language Word

Abjad alphabet/alefbet Arabic abjadAgama religion Sanskrit agama/dharmaAhad Sunday Arabic al-AhadAhli community Arabic ahlilAksara alphabetic letter, key Sanskrit akṣaraAlmari cupboard Portuguese armárioAnggur grape Persian گنااررو /angur

Angkasaouter space, sky(literary) Sanskrit ākāśa "sky"

Anugerah award, blessing Sanskrit anugraha अन#$ह "favour"

apamkind of cake orHoppers Tamil apam

Askar soldier Arabic ash'kar/ رکسعAsmara love, passion Sanskrit smaraBahasa language Sanskrit bhāṣā

Bahaya danger Sanskrit bhaya भय "risk, peril"

Baki remainder, leftover Arabic baqiyah قبةیي

Baktihomage, devotion, service etc. Sanskrit bhakti

Baldi bucket Portuguese baldeBandar port/town Persian bandr/رردنبBangku stool/chairs Portuguese bancoBendera flag Portuguese bandeiraBiara monastery Sanskrit biharaBihun rice vermicelli Hokkien mi-hunBiola violin Portuguese violaBiskut biscuit EnglishBola ball Portuguese bolaBomba

fire brigadePortuguese bomba, "pump", or bombeiro,

"fireman", lit. "pumper"

Boneka doll Portuguese BonecaBuat do Sanskrit wuat

Budi reason, virtue Sanskrit boddhi, related to buddhismBuku book Dutch boekBumi earth Sanskrit bhūmi "land"Cadar bed linen Persian chādar رردداچ "cloak"

Cawan cup Mandarincháwǎn (茶碗) '“tea

bowl”cendana sandalwood Sanskrit candanaCukup enough Mandarin chu gouDacing scales Mandarin tái chèng 台秤Dakwah sermon Arabic da'wahDekan dean Portuguese decano

Delima pomegranate, ruby Sanskritdálima"pomegranate"

Denda fine, punishment Sanskrit dandaDesa Countryside Sanskrit deśa "country"

Dewan hall Persiandiwan/ننااویيدد"administration"

Dewi Goddess Sanskrit devi

Dirgahayu

"long live"(Dirgahayu Tuanku! - Long live the King!) Sanskrit dirghayu

Duka sadness Sanskrit duhkhaDunia world Arabic dunyā

Durjanaevil, wicked, malicious

Sanskrit durjana

Erti (Indonesian variant "arti") meaning Sanskrit arta

Falsafah philosophyArabic (derived fromGreek) falsafah

Fitnah slander Arabicfitnah "upheaval, scandal"

Gajah elephant Sanskritgaja

Gandum wheat Persian Gandm/ممدنگGaraj garrage EnglishGarpu fork Portuguese garfoGereja church Portuguese igrejaGratis (mainly inIndonesian usage) for free

Portuguese (FromLatin)

gulai kind of curry Tamil gulambuGuru teacher Sanskrit guruHad limit Arabic haddHalal permitted ArabicHaram forbidden Arabic

Hasta hasta (unit) Sanskrithásta

Hina lowly, inferior Sanskrit hīnnaHisab counting/arithmetic Arabic hisāb/ بباسحHuruf word character/letter Arabic HurfIlmu knowledge/science Arabic alm/ilmi

Istana palace Sanskritásthánaassembly/audience hall

Jawab to answer Arabic jawāb

Jelata the masses Sanskritjanatá"community"

Jendela window Portuguese janelaKamus dictionary Arabic qāmūskapal boat Tamil kappalKaunter "counter" or "desk" Englishkedai foodstall Tamil kadaiKeju cheese Portuguese queijoKelas class English classKemeja shirt Portuguese camisa

Kepala head Sanskritkapāla "skull"

Kerana (Karena inIndonesian) because Sanskrit karaṇenaKereta carriage, car Portuguese carretaKhamis Thursday Arabic al-khamisKismis raisin Persian kishmish/شمشکKolam Pool of water Tamil kulamKoma-koma saffron Sanskrit kuṅkuma

Kompromi Compromise

The pronunciation (lack of the "s" phoneme) suggeststhat this was borrowed from French (perhaps via Dutch)

compromis

Komputer computer EnglishKongsi share Hokkien kong-si 公司Korban sacrifice Arabic Qur-banKota fort Tamil KottaiKucai chives Hokkien gu-chai 韭菜Kuda horse Sanskrit kuddaKuih cake Hokkien goe 粿Kurma date Persian Khurma/امرخLimau lemon/orange Portuguese limão "lemon"Lobak carrot Cantonese lubba 蘿蔔Longkang drain Hokkien longkang 流失Maaf sorry Arabic MaffMaha great Sanskrit mahaMakmal laboratory ArabicMangga mango Tamil mangai

Mani Sperm, semen Sanskrit maṇi "bead, jewel, gem" Manusia human being Sanskrit manuṣyáMasjid mosque Arabic masjdMee/mi noodles Hokkien miMeja table Portuguese mesa

Melatijasmine (jasminum grandiflorum) Sanskrit mālatī

Mentega butter Portuguese manteigaMerana suffering, wasting away Sanskrit māraṇa "death"

Merdekarich, prosperous and powerful Sanskrit Maharddhika

Merdu melodious, tuneful Sanskrit mṛdu "soft"Mesej message English message

Minggu week Portuguesedomingo (Domingo means Sunday, "Dom" meaning "Lord" in Latin)

Miskin poor Arabic miskeenMuflis bankrupt Arabic mufls

Mula to start, to begin Sanskritmūla origin

Munafik hypocrite Arabic munafq

Muzium museumEnglish (Derived from Greek, the "um" suffix is Latin)

Nadi pulse, lifeline Sanskrit nāḍī "artery"Najis excrement Arabic njisNama name Sanskrit naamNegara country Sanskrit nagara "city"Neraka hell Sanskrit naraka

Nila indigo dye Sanskritnīla "blue"

Nilam sapphire Sanskritnīla "blue"

Nobat royal ensemble music Sanskrit

compound nau-, nav(a)- "nine" + bah "combination" = "combination of nine (musical instruments)"

Nujum astrologer Arabic al-njum

Nusantaraarchipelago (esp. theMalay Archipelago) Javanese

Paderi priest (Christian) Portuguese padrePahala divine reward Sanskrit phalaPahlawan hero/warrior Persian bahlwān/ ننااولہپ

Pancaragam musical band Sanskrit

pañca "five" + rāga"melody/tune/musical note"

Pasar market, bazaar Persian bāzār ررااززاب

Pau steamed bun Chinese

bao 包(another plausiblesource may bePortuguese pão)

Perdana menteri prime minister Sanskritpradhānamantrin

Perkasa mighty Sanskritprakáśa"enlightened"base word "pustaka" is the

Perpustakaan library Sanskrit Sanskrit word for "book"

Pertama first Sanskritprathama

Pertiwi native soil, motherland Sanskrit

pṛthivī /pṛthvī"Prithvi", mother goddess of the earth

Pesta party Portuguese festaPeta map Telugu Paṭaṁ (పటం�)

Pialacup (in the sense of a trophy) Persian piyāla (ھهالیيپ)

Pita tape Portuguese fitaPuasa fasting Sanskrit upavasa

Puja idolize, worship Sanskritpūjā

Punya possessive verb Sanskritpunya merit, deserving

Pura Hindu temple, city Sanskritpura city/walled enclosure

Purba ancient Sanskritpurva/poorv meaning past

Purnama (of the moon) full Sanskritroot pūrṇa - cf. "sempurna"

Putera prince Sanskrit putra "royal son"

Rahsia secret Sanskritrahasya"mysterious"

Raja king Sanskrit rādja

Raksasa monster Sanskritrākṣasa / demon

Rasa taste Sanskritrasa

Ratna jewel, gemstone Sanskritratna

Renda lace Portuguese rendaRisiko risk Dutch risico

Roda wheelPortuguese, from theLatin "Rota" roda

Rokok cigarette Dutch roken "to smoke"

Ronda verb, to patrol Portugueseverb, rondar or noun, ronda

Roti bread Sanskrit rutti

Rupashape, form, appearance

Sanskrit rūpa

Sabda(of Muslim prophets)quote, say Sanskrit śabda "word"

Sabun soap Arabic sàbuun

Sahaja

casual, relaxed (eg duduk bersahaja "seated casually") Sanskrit sahaja "natural"

Sains science EnglishSalji snow Arabic thaljiSama same Sanskrit sammaSamseng gangster Hokkien saⁿ-seng 三牲Sejarah history Arabic syajarah/tawarihSekolah school Portuguese escolaSeks sex English, from Greek

Selamat safe, well-being Arabicsalamat, used for greeting phrases as 'selamat pagi', etc

Sempurna perfect, complete Sanskritsampūrṇa complete(d) - cf. "purnama"

sengsara Suffering Sanskrit samsaraSepanduk banner Dutch spandoekSepatu shoe Portuguese sapato

Serigala wolf Sanskritśṛgāla "jackal"

Seteru adversary, enemy Sanskritśatru

Singa lion Tamil singamSistem system EnglishSoldadu (obsolete) soldier Portuguese soldado

Suci clean, pure Sanskritśuci / clean

Suka happiness Sanskrit sukha

Sula to impale Sanskritśūla / stake, spear, pike

Supir(dialectal/Indonesian) driver French chauffeurSuria sun Sanskrit suryaSyariah Islamic law Arabic shāri`ahSyor recommendation Mandarin shuoSyukur thankful Arabic shukrSyurga heaven Sanskrit swargam[1]Takhta throne Persian takht تخت

Tali string Sanskrit talliTangki tank Portuguese tanqueTarikh date Arabic at-tārihTaugeh beansprouts Hokkien tao-gehTauhu beancurd Hokkien tao-huTeh O black tea Hokkien tê-o 茶烏

Teja (archaic)magnificence, splendor, radiance Sanskrit tejas

Teko teapot Hokkien te-koTeksi taxi EnglishTelevisyen television English, from Greek

tāmra (Sanskrit) or tumbaga (Spanish). The Spanish word

Tembaga copperpossibly Sanskrit orSpanish

rather refers to a copper-gold alloy.

Tempoh period Portuguesetempo time, from theLatin "Tempus"

Topi hat Sanskrit tuppiTuala towel Portuguese toalhaTukar to exchange Portuguese trocarUnta camel Sanskrit ushtra

Utama main Sanskrituttama "principal" (adj.)

Utara north Sanskrit uttar(a)Waktu time Arabic waqt

Wangsa dynasty Sanskritvaṃśa "lineage, race"- cf. "bangsa"

Wanita women Tamil/Telugu

vanithai(Vanita in Telugu, also thought of came from Spanish word Juanita means women)

Warna colour Sanskrit varna

Warta news Sanskritvārttā

Zirafah giraffe Arabic zarafh