What is Manglish?

image: parenbonjour.com

In this post, we talk in general on some examples of Manglish and how it started.

English has been spoken in Malaysia since the colonial days. When the British set up schools around Malaysia, everything was taught based on the Queen’s way.

Language is dynamic. As much as the British would like Malaysians to speak English the ‘proper’ way, English did not remain pure amidst the multi-racial Malaysians. With Malay, Chinese, Tamil and other ingenuous languages, the queen’s language got quickly jumbled up with Malaysian’s native languages, creating what we call ‘Manglish’.

Malay, the country’s official language has lent the notorious suffix –lah which can be heard at the end of almost every sentence uttered. The Chinese would fight to claim the suffix –lah as theirs too as Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, and all the other Chinese dialects also have the abundant use of –lah.

Besides the infamous suffix –lah, Malaysians added numerous vocabulary items which send native English speakers puzzling over our Manglish. It is not hard for the average Malaysians to use words such as ‘outstation’, ‘handphone’, ‘gostan’, ‘blur’ and understand the meaning immediately. However, these simple words to us very much sounded like a total alien language to the native English speakers.

With almost all Malaysians being multi-lingual, it is common to hear interjections of their mother tongues in English. Malaysians can easily switch from one language to another without a pause – which is also known as code-switching.

The development of Manglish does not stop where it began, but surely, as time goes by, the younger generation of Malaysians will surely add more spices that will make Manglish even spicier.

Discussion: Look at the flow charts above and discuss with your group on how our current 'Rojak Language' came about. Present an example in our next class.