Once I stood for ages, in the steaming heat, in front of a sign that read “Awas get”. I was determined to work it out. “Awas” means beware, I knew that. But “get”? Minutes, hours, days passed; then suddenly the cen dropped. Gate! “Get” means gate! “Beware the gate”. Holy etymology Batman!

Now language is a marvelous thing but the fantastic uses of language in Malaysia are like nowhere on earth. The rules are few. This is what makes it such a joy. It starts with whipping bits of English into phonetic shape like “get” for gate or “lif”, or “maksimum” or “teknologi”. You can take any word and Malaysianize it: “kibod”, “spikah”, “kanopi”. Hours of fun for the whole family.

Then there’s adding superfluous bits to the ends of phrases for emphasis. “Lah” is the most common. “No, lah”, “Yes, lah”. “You know what I mean, lah!” Yes, it’s pulled over from Malay, but when used with English I can only assume it’s there to express a sense of verbal surprise like a kind of fanfare; da dah! “My house just burned down, lah” or “I’ve just caught my wife with another man, lah!” (Oddly the only other place in the world that uses “lah” that I know of is in the British city of Liverpool! Then I guess waking up every morning in Liverpool has to be a bit of a shock.)

Of course the mostly Chinese habit of shoving a useless “one” on the end of phrases is very special. Hearing terms like “not like that one” or “Is that a new car one” is not so odd, but “one dollar one” and “One Malaysia one” is downright brilliant. Both these superfluous bits of verbiage can, of course, be experienced together in the mellifluous, “so bad lah you one!” Suitable for all occasions.

Malaysia is also blessed with a wonderful variety of unique expletives. These are very useful. “Aioh, I’ve been bitten by a cobra”; “Adoi, I’ve been hit by a runaway train”; “Ayah, a piano has fallen on me from a tall building”. All fully interchangeable of course; and again, suitable for all occasions.

And the “Jewel in the Crown” of Malaysian language; Manglish or Bahasa Rojak; the excellent and exciting mixing up of all and any of the available spoken languages. “Potong steam”, “tapau my lunch”, “don’t kacau me”, “cannot tahan”; on and on. And examples where the English has also been corrupted like, “bes sekali” and “kena samman”. And “Gostan balik”; being a particular favorite combining both a corruption of “go astern” with the Malay for back. So much more decorous than simply saying “please reverse”. There is even a theory that the word “Matsalleh” is a corruption of “Mad Sailor”. Sounds decidedly appropriate.

Many years ago, I was at a timber camp near Temerloh, having dinner with a bunch of Malaysians from all manner of backgrounds, and I kid you not, they may have been combining words from up to six different languages and dialects. Often all in the same sentence! I don’t recall precisely what was said so I’m making this up; it went something like; ”Sei lah, your ang mo fren kena so much tunny he totally mabuk mah!” English, corrupted English, Malay, Tamil, Hokkien, Cantonese and Mandarin! It can be done!

Malaysian patois is also excellent when rude. “Don’t talk cock” and “bang balls” are incomparably descriptive of nonsense and frustration respectively.

I could go on forever in praise of Malaysia’s homegrown lingua.

There are the malapropisms, like the departing guest who says “thank you for your kind hospital”. Strange pronunciations like “doncht” for don’t. Placing emphasis on the wrong syllable; this being a transmigration from Bahasa Malaysia where the emphasis is almost always on the middle or last syllable; calendar and emphasis being perfect examples.

But worst of all for non-Malaysians is that Malaysia-speak is outrageously infectious. It’s a bit like how your neck becomes all lose and rubbery when you go to India. One ends up putting “lah” on the end of everything. Or using the expletives all the time. A chum of mine went back to the UK having been here a while and, in the middle of a dinner party, surrounded by 100% Brits, screamed out “Aiyah” at the top of his lungs having come in contact with some horridly hot soup. Conversation stopped dead and there was talk of calling for the giggle wagon.

Finally, it is common knowledge that Dewan Bahasa (The National Language Centre) try very, very hard to regulate properly spoken language. So if they catch you not using the proper authorized Bahasa Malaysia, you know what they’ll say don’t you? That’s right.

“So bad lah you one.”

 Source: The Expat magazine February 2011, article by Paul Loosley 
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This article has been edited for ExpatGoMalaysia.com