Manglish is an informal or basilect 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 Peninsular Malaysia is very similar to and highly mutually intelligible with Singlish of Singapore. There is generally little distinction between the two, although Singlish speakers may use fewer words derived from Malay and more from Chinese languages (particularly Hokkien 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 are 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.
History 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.[The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages & Literature by Prof. Dato' Dr Asmah Haji Omar (2004) .]
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).
Malaysian English and Manglish 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.
Influences from other languages 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.
Duplication of words 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:
(Don't be too noisy or I'll discipline you later.) (Was the boy you used to date the very short one we met at the party?)
Words and grammar
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).Tan, Ludwig (2003) 'Topic prominence and null arguments in Singapore Colloquial English'. In David Deterding, Low Ee Ling and Adam Brown (Eds.) English in Singapore: Research on Grammar, Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, pp. 1-10.Tan, Ludwig (2007) Null Arguments in Singapore Colloquial English. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.Leong, Alvin (2003) Subject omission in Singapore Colloquial English. In David Deterding, Low Ee Ling and Adam Brown (Eds.) English in Singapore: Research on Grammar, Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, pp. 11-21. 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: "That school Chinese orchestra very good one." (The Chinese orchestra of that school is very good.) "She play violin very bad leh." (She's very bad at playing the violin.) "Yesterday she also give homework, too much lah." (She also gave homework yesterday, there's too much.) "Discussed finish already." (We've finished discussing already. 'Already', which is sudah in Malay, is used to mark verbs referring to the past. Malay itself has no verb tenses. Consequently, manglish can use 'already' to indicate a past or completed action despite 'finish' being in the present tense.) 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.Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1994) The Step-tongue: Children's English in Singapore, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, pp. 10-11. For example: "Stupid lah." (This is stupid.) "Why don't want come?" (Why don't you want to come?)
Nouns "ang mo" – White people, from Hokkien "red hair" (). Used by Chinese, while the Malays use Mat Salleh {see below}. Gweilo may be used in Cantonese. "chop" – stamp (also used as verb). From Malay 'cop' meaning stamp e.g. "Put your company chop on the receipt". "dollar" – a loaned currency used especially in relation to business transactions, in lieu of "ringgit" (Ringgit Malaysia). "Mat Salleh" - a Malay term to describe white people. "outstation" – out of town (e.g. going outstation), from the colonial era when British officials went to hill stations to escape the heat. "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 "action / ackshun/ eksyen" – showing-off, arrogant, from English "action". "aiksy / lan si" – arrogant, overconfident. Laan si is of Cantonese origin. "best" - superlatively good, see also syok/shiok. "blur" – confused, unfocused, ignorant. "chop" – stamp (of approval). (Due to confusion of the usage of the Malay word "cap". [E.g. I got the chop for my letter from the office lah.]) "" – casually, simply, doing things as one pleases. Comes from Hokkien chhìn-chhái () for "simply", "casual" or "slipshod". E.g. "I just cincai order a dish from the menu." "geng" – great, amazing, used to describe a person. e.g. "Wah, he is so geng." "" – to be annoyed, irritated, pissed off. Originally from Malay meaning "angry" or "to feel agitated". e.g. "Eh look at his attitude lah, geram only!" "la-la" – flashy, gaudy appearance. "La-la" replaces the older derogatory term "Ah Lien" that is used to describe girls who wear heavy make-up and outstanding clothes and accessories, which usually end up being rather bad taste instead of looking sophisticated or in fashion. They also usually sport brightly coloured hair. "La-la" can also be used to describe the things these girls are known to wear. E.g. "That salegirl was very la-la"/"The clothes are so la-la." These days, the term is also used to describe guys who sports outstanding/bizarre hairstyle and wear outstanding clothes and accessories resulting in bad taste as well. "la-la zai" and "la-la mui" is commonly used to make distinctions between the genders, with the former referring to guys and the latter referring to girls. The "la-la's" also feature rather punkish attitudes.