Manglish

Manglish is an informal form of Malaysian English with features of an English-based creole principally used in Malaysia. It is heavily influenced by the main languages of the country, Malay, Tamil, and varieties of Chinese. It is highly colloquial and not one of the official languages spoken in Malaysia.
Manglish spoken in West Malaysia is very similar to and highly mutually intelligible with Singlish of Singapore, a creole of similar roots due to historical reasons. There is generally little distinction between the two creoles although subtle differences do exist, with Manglish vocabulary containing more Malay words while Singlish containing more words from Chinese languages such as Hokkien (Min Nan) and Teochew.
The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and, to a lesser extent, various other European languages and Arabic, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese. Also, elements of American and Australian slang have come through from imported television series. Manglish is sometimes historically known as Bahasa Rojak, but it differs from the latter by the use of English as the base language. The term rojak derives from "mixture" or "eclectic mix" in colloquial Malay. The East Coast (Kelantan and Terengganu) and Borneo versions (Sarawak and Sabah) of Manglish may differ greatly from that of the western coast of West Malaysia.
Besides mixing multiple languages, Manglish includes mixing the syntax of each language. Idioms, proverbs and phrases are also often translated directly to English from Malay, Chinese, and Tamil. The accent and vocabulary used is highly dependent on the formality of the context and language dominance of the speaker. The speaker would also vary the quantity of Manglish spoken depending on their counterpart. As a result, foreigners unfamiliar with the region are generally unable to grasp Manglish; it is mostly understandable only to native-born Malaysians and some Singaporeans. Some Malaysians are able to speak their native language fluently but choose to speak Manglish locally in their daily lives and conversations.
The term Manglish is first recorded in 1989. Other colloquial portmanteau words for Manglish include (chronologically): Malish (1992), Malaylish (1992), Malenglish (1994), Malglish (1997), Malayglish (2005), and Malanglish (2013).
Manglish shares substantial linguistic similarities with Singlish of 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 rule, though never forming a single administrative unit except for a brief period 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 non-Malays such as the Chinese and Indians would speak Malay when addressing their counterparts who did not speak their language.
English as spoken in Malaysia is based on British English and called Malaysian English. British spelling is generally followed. 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 languages 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 Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tamil, which are other major languages spoken in Malaysia. Manglish also uses some archaic British terms from the era of British rule (see "gostan" and "outstation" below).
In Malaysia, Manglish is considered to be a less formal form of Malaysian English which has features of a pidgin or a creole, rather than a fully-fledged creole language. While all varieties of English used by Malaysians may be considered Malaysian English, some make a distinction between Malaysian English and Manglish; Malaysian English being a form of English that largely follows the standard rules of English grammar but with some local characteristics, while Manglish is a pidgin that does not follow the grammatical rules or structure of English. Many Malaysians however tend to refer to the colloquialisms used by those taught in English-medium school as Malaysian English, while some argued for the basilect form or pidgin as the "real" Malaysian English. 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.
There are some differences of contemporary words used between Malaysia and the United Kingdom. The use of Manglish is discouraged at schools, where only Malaysian Standard English is taught.
The term Malaysian English is not used 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.
It is however, possible to speak Manglish without substituting English words with those from another language.
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.
Aside from borrowing lexicons and expressions at varying levels depending on the speaker's mother tongue, Malay, Chinese and Tamil also influence Manglish at a sentence formation level.
For example, Chinese languages do not mark the verb for tenses. Instead, information about time is often acquired through contextual knowledge or time-specific markers such as 'yesterday', 'today' and 'tomorrow'. This is also replicated in Manglish with sentences like 'She go to the shop yesterday' and 'I come here every day'.
The Chinese also tend to speak Manglish with staccato feel as it is syllable-timed, unlike English which is stress-timed.
Chinese, Malay and Tamil languages often duplicate words for different functions such as to show pluralisation, emphasis or repetition. Similarly, this has influenced the duplication of English words when speaking Manglish, especially when placing emphasis on certain words or to show pluralisation.
Some examples include:
Manglish is topic-prominent, like Chinese and Malay. This means that Manglish sentences often begin with a topic (or a known reference of the conversation), followed by a comment (or new information). Compared to Standard English, the semantic relationship between topic and comment is not important; moreover, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and even entire subject-verb-object phrases can all serve as the topic:
The above constructions can be translated analogously into Malay and Chinese, with little change to the word order.
The topic can be omitted when the context is clear, or shared between clauses. This results in constructions that appear to be missing a subject to a speaker of Standard English, and so called PRO-drop utterances may be regarded as a diagnostic feature of Manglish. For example:
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 space for clarity, but there is never a pause before it. This is because originally in 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.
It is also possible that Lah comes from Cantonese. In Cantonese, Lah (啦) is placed at the end of a sentence in imperatives making it sound more like a request than an order.
It might have Tamil origin as well. 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.
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.
'Loh' or 'lo' (囉) is used in the same context as "lah". It serves as a final particle to intensify a decision that is definitive and irrevocable.
In most cases, loh is used in direct response to a question or query with the connotation that the respondent is somewhat impatient or annoying because the person thinks that the answer is so obvious that the question should not have been raised from the start. In fact, the questioner might have no idea beforehand about the rude reply that would be shot back to him/her, though it can be argued that the word 'lah' might deliver stronger emotions from the speaker.
For example, to show argumentative mood or making emphasis, one would say, "You lo (it's your fault), if it's not for you we wouldn't be in trouble now!" and possibly in response, the other would say, "Eh, I never forced you to follow me here loh!" Another example is "traffic jam loh!" when asked by a friend why he or she is late to an occasion.
Sometimes, loh is used to express insincerity while speaking, for instance when one says "sorry loh" or "thank you loh".
However, in some cases, the use of loh is only intended to give an advice without any notion of impatience. Examples: "I think he's being unreasonable loh" or "if you ask you will know loh".
In lesser cases, using "loh" can make some emphasis or convey a jovial atmosphere. For example, "I came all the way for you loh" and "Nah, that one loh, that fat chubby one in a yellow shirt loh".
"Loh" is mostly used by the Chinese community in Malaysia, because of its Cantonese origin.
"Meh" is commonly 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 meh?" (meaning "I like her. What's wrong with that?").
"Meh" is of Cantonese origin (咩). In Cantonese or Hakka, "meh" is a final particle that transforms statements into questions that indicate doubt or surprise.
Manglish has its unique set of features when spoken by native Malaysians that are distinct from the standard variety of English. Though very similar to spoken Singlish, the two should not be considered the same variety.
Manglish is non-rhotic
There is no distinction between long and short vowels
Diphthongs are reduced to monophthongs
Dental fricatives /ð/ and /θ/ are pronounced as dental plosives instead.
Omission of final consonants
The use of Manglish can be commonly found on the internet, especially amongst bloggers.
"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:
There is a tendency to drop referential pronouns (I, you) in Manglish. This is due to direct translations of Chinese and Malay in which it is unnecessary. For example, "you" and "I" in the following sentences is omittable.
There is a tendency to use plural forms for uncountable nouns such as 'staffs', 'equipments', 'informations', 'criterias' and 'phenomenons'. Additionally, some articles are often dropped.
Manglish and Singlish share a common history and some common characteristics. The difference between Manglish and Singlish can be subtle and sometimes difficult to be distinguished even among Malaysians and Singaporeans. However, Manglish is markedly more influenced by the Malay language, with Malaysia being an ethnic Malay majority country; while Singlish is more influenced by Chinese languages, with Singapore being a ethnic Chinese majority country. However, any subtle differences between the two is generally lost to a foreigner's ears who is unfamiliar with both Malaysia and Singapore.