Manglish

History

Manglish shares substantial linguistic similarities with Singlish in Singapore, although distinctions can be made, particularly in vocabulary.

Initially, "Singlish" and "Manglish" were essentially the same language, when both Singapore and the states now comprising Peninsular Malaysia were under various forms of direct and indirect British colonial rule, though not forming a single administrative unit except between 1963 and 1965. (See Malaya). In old British Malaya, English was the language of the British administration whilst Malay was the lingua franca of the street. Even ethnic Chinese would speak Malay when addressing other Chinese people who did not speak the same Chinese dialect.

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 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. However, 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 Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Tamil, which are other major dialects and languages spoken in Malaysia. Manglish also uses some archaic British terms from the era of British colonisation (see "gostan" and "outstation" below).

Definition: Officially and On-the-streets

On the streets, Manglish is short for Malaysian English, a unique dialect of English spoken in Malaysia.

Due to the multi-language environment, the English language in Malaysia has evolved into a creole with its own phonology, lexicon and grammar.

There is no reference to the English being used in Malaysia, as Malaysian English, even from the English daily newspapers. Naturally, there are some differences of contemporary words used between Malaysia and the United Kingdom as they are continents apart and each has their own media. However, they are not so distinctly apart and established that English in Malaysia needs to be recognised as Malaysian English. The use of Manglish is discouraged at schools, where only Malaysian Standard English is taught.

Malaysia continually strives to refer to authorities of British English but also accepts that American English influence is becoming increasingly apparent. Hence, Malaysia has no intention of formulating its own English or coming up with its own dictionary, unlike some English-speaking Commonwealth states like Australia.

There is no such term as Malaysian English in any official context except for the ever-changing school curriculum modules in attempts to improve the command of English but without going into advanced lessons. Call it English 112, English for Primary Students, Malaysian English, Conversational English etc. but "Malaysian English" is not an official dialect of English. On the streets, Manglish is just "Malaysian English" just as Singlish is Singaporean English.

It is however, possible to speak Manglish/Singlish without substituting English words with that from another language.

Manglish Particles

Manglish can be divided into two:

Manglish 1 can be standard ME – with the exception of a minority of Malaysian speakers who have been educated abroad and have achieved near-native speaker proficiency generally speaking.

Manglish 2 can be sub-standard ME/local dialect – it has all the features of the first variety of Manglish. Besides, at the lexical level, limited lexis is used and consequently, a number of words serve a variety of functions, giving extended meanings not normally accepted in standard British English.

Derive Influences

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 one of the Indian languages - 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". Or sometimes, "open the light", translated directly from Chinese.

Nouns

Adjectives

Verbs

Exclamations

Grammar

Phrases

The "Lah" word

The ubiquitous word lah ([lɑ́] or [lɑ̂]), used at the end of a sentence, can also be described as a particle that simultaneously asserts a position and entices solidarity.

Note that 'lah' is often written after a comma for clarity, but there is never a pause before it. This is because in the original Malay, 'lah' is appended to the end of the word and is not a separate word by itself.

In Malay, 'lah' is used to change a verb into a command or to soften its tone, particularly when usage of the verb may seem impolite. For example, "to drink" is "minum", but "Here, drink!" is "minumlah". Similarly, 'lah' is frequently used with imperatives in Singlish, such as the command, "Drink, lah!" (Come on, drink!). 'Lah' also occurs frequently with "Yah" and "No" (hence "Yah lah" and "No lah"), resulting in a less brusque sound, thus facilitating the flow of conversation. This form is more used by Chinese in Malaysia.

Lah is often used with brusque, short, negative responses:

Lah is also used for reassurance:

Lah can also be used to emphasize items in a spoken list, appearing after each item in the list but is not commonly used in this context.

Although lah can appear nearly anywhere, it cannot appear with a yes-no question. Another particle should be used instead. For example:

The Chinese influence in Manglish, however, can be seen among other races in Malaysia, especially when conversing with Chinese-speaking people. This principle can be generally applied to all forms of non-standard English spoken in Malaysia.

It might have Tamil origin. Lah is still used widely in Southern Tamil Nadu (Thirunelveli, Kanyakumari district) in the same manner. Tamil is said to be more pure in this region than northern Tamil Nadu and had ancient trade link with south east Asia [1].

"Meh" is also a common ubiquitous word that used at the end of a question. It is usually used with a sense of confidence in his or her own statement but the hint of doubt towards the other person. For example," I like her, can not mei?" (meaning "I like her. What's wrong with that?").

Many of these terms are spoken by a very wide range of Singaporeans, Malaysians and Chinese locals

What

The particle what [wɑ̀t], also spelled wat/wot, is used to remind or contradict the listener, especially when strengthening another assertion that follows from the current one:

Miscellaneous

"There is"/"there are" and "has"/"have" are both expressed using got, so that sentences can be translated in either way back into British / American English. This is equivalent to the Chinese 有 yǒu (to have):

Can is used extensively as both a question particle and an answer particle. The negative is cannot:

Manglish vs Singlish

The difference between Manglish and Singlish is very subtle and can oftentimes be hard to distinguish even among the locals. However, Manglish is markedly more influenced by the Malay language, with the majority population in Malaysia being the Ethnic Malays; while Singlish is more influenced by Hokkien dialect or Mandarin Chinese, with the majority population being the Ethnic Chinese. For example, “kena” (a Malay word, somewhat of a prefix added for the sake of turning an action verb into passive form) might be more often used in Manglish; while Singlish more frequently uses words like “liao” (meaning "already" in Hokkien), “nia” (meaning "only" in Hokkien). However, referring the aforementioned example, "kena" is also used in Singlish and "liao" in Mangish, only to a less extent. This shows the huge influences on these two languages on each other as well. There is virtually no difference between the two when heard from foreigner's ears.

Other usage