MANGLISH = ENGLISH?

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Malaysia is a very polarized country with multi races & ethnic living peacefully together. Don’t bother with the news & media that is constantly stirring up race conflicts like what the politicians always do.

Truly, Malaysia is rich with cultural evidence where every people from all walks of life are allowed to practise their culture accept unless they violate the Law.

One of the social identities that Malaysians holds is their Manglish aka Malaysian English. Just like how Singaporean’s, Australian’s, and other varieties of English.

Manglish comes with own syntax, vocabulary, unusual collocations, & special breed of idioms & metaphors. As Language = Identity, Manglish is brilliantly fused & influenced by essences from all races, ethnics and languages in Malaysia.

As the matter in fact, most of these words are difficult to translate into proper English as the usage is so diverse and sometimes carried more than a meaning in different context.

Let’s Cabut (English + Malay) = Let’s Flee
So Humsup (English + Cantonese) = So Perverted

Or some direct translation from other languages like “Die!” [‘sei’ in cantonese) with similar meaning] which carries the same meaning and usage of the American’s “Shit!”. Such shortened words to describe something are very common in Manglish because Malaysians don’t like long windedness.



New breed of charming permutations that has its own history of birth like “gostan” (Use to refer to vehicle that is on reverse, can be use as instructions), and some extend it into action “gostaning”.

One catchy tail-ender that Malaysian Manglish speakers usually utter is “-lah”, and some other add-on sounds like ‘ar’, ‘wor’, ‘leh’, and etc.

Through a small survey I have done, the result of reasoning behind this is that it gives off the sound of friendliness & closeness. This is also one of Malaysia signature attraction of tourists and visitors. The culture is such that most Malaysians are easy to warm up and friendly even to foreigners.

Some of my friends ha, foreigner wor, after staying here for 1 year nia, they can speak proper Manglish d like true Malaysian wor, ‘terrer’ (Awesome) leh?. Then again hor, is not really bad also mah. If go foreign country, we can immediately recognise our country mate just be hearing him/her speak English leh.

But my Malaysian Friends ar, must remember wor. Formal cakap-cakap and informal speaking veri different leh. “Despite some claimed that we speak broken English, we must show them that we are able to speak proper English as well.” However, be proud also ler with our own Manglish, since is our identity mah!? They like it no like it also we care what? I siok you siok, we all siok, settle lah. Most importantly we all Happi all the time mah!!