But your story isn't Malaysian unless you use Manglish!

"Other people drive so you also want to drive-lah, yes or not?"

I'm told my lips purse when I'm agitated.

"Eh, don't so serious-lah. Learn to drive is like learn to smoke. Actually you don't want to smoke one. But you want to be someone who smoke. Because smoking is cool! Same thing-lah. Driving don't mean you got licence. So many people drive go no licence what! But driving means you got a car. And if you got a car, you are cool. Yes or not?"

"No-lah! Where got?" I say.

Of course no-lah where got. Because I'm not a cliche. I'm not so predictable that some Jinjang Joe driving instructor can decode me so easily. I'm complex and complicated and other polysyllabic words. No-lah, where got? C'mon, dude. Show him.

"It's a rite of passage."

"What?"

"Rite. Of. Passage. It's ... it's something that shows you've come of age.

Blank stare.

"It's the right thing to do for a kid my age."

Blank stare.

"Hai-yah, I'm in Form Five already! It's time to get a licence what!"

Instructor smiles. His teeth like an insult.

- Ivan Yeo; Clutch, Brake, Sellerator (Clutch, Brake, Sellerator and other stories, MPH Group Publishing 2010)

 

Depending how Mangled your Malaysian English is, you'll have different versions of Manglish. Above is an example that works. The protagonist actually uses proper English, but he uses Manglish to converse with the driving instructor, who either speaks poor English, or thinks that the protagonist speaks poor English, so he talks like a typical Malaysian Chinese to communicate with the protagonist more readily.

To confuse you even more, what if the protagonist is a Malay, talking and thinking in Malay, while the instructor is a Chinese who isn't fluent in Malay, just enough to use a broken language. Only thing is, the author uses a Universal Translator from Babylon 5 so that readers see the story in Standard English (and its broken equivalent).

Malaysians generally view Manglish with pride. It's uniquely Malaysian, this mixture of English-Malay-Chinese-Tamil. 1Malaysia la katakan (inside joke). To be honest, I mix English with Malay in my day-to-day conversations (occasionally even during formal presentations), plus some Cantonese, Tamil, Italian, or French, depending on the first curse word that pops into my head when the need arises. Not only that, my inflections differ when I use Manglish with a Malay (normal but fast), an Indian (predominantly blunt and rolling) and a Chinese (sharper, with a singsong quality characteristic of the Chinese language). You have no idea how mangled my English is.

But.

The conversations in my head are predominantly in Standard English (not British or American. Just Standard). I don't really think in Malay, even though I am one. Maybe it's because of the English books Mama used to buy for me when I was little. Maybe it's because of the English shows we watched on RTM2 and TV3, and the English-language radio stations we listened to as my siblings and I grew up. Whatever it may be, when I converse in proper English, my friends snicker and mimick my rolling Rs. They tell me I have a weird slang, not British, not American, but not Malaysian either. My Australian cousins say I don't have a slang. So there.

Purists abhor Manglish. They claim that Manglish is a pidgin language, and adulterated English. To a certain extent, I agree with them. If a presenter uses Manglish in front of an international audience, it shows how poor our grasp of Standard English is. In a world where a nation's standing is partly based on its people's mastery of English, Manglish reflects poorly on Malaysia as a whole. Even in formal discussions and presentations among local colleagues, one has to choose a common language and use its standard form. It's only proper and civil to do so, don't you agree?

Do I go as far as purists, seeking to destroy Manglish altogether? I'm not an extremist, so my answer is no. Manglish has its charms. It's uniquely Malaysian, as Singlish is to Singapore. Westerners take a while to understand and adapt, but once they do, quite a number also use Manglish (and even Mangled Malay).

To illustrate the points I have above, watch these videos of Paku & Belacan:

 

 

Hilarious, right? To be fair, they're talking in Malay, but they use the prescribed 'lah' and 'kan' and they also inject English phrases in their Malay conversations. This is exactly how Manglish sounds. Broken, weird, and at the same time endearing. I think almost all Malaysians will collapse on the floor with stitches on their flanks watching Paku & Belacan.

Here's the catch: I don't know if English users from other parts of the globe will appreciate them the same way. There's bound to be amusement beside the "What the hell are these jokers talking about?". Manglish becomes an insider language, a type of slang that not everyone can understand. Sure, a story written wholly in Manglish is distinctly Malaysian. But can it be international? I haven't tried, truth be told. I install the Universal Translator in all my stories. My characters are Malay, Chinese and/or Indian, using Malaysian versions of the languages, but readers see them as Standard English.

I used to get weirded out if I tried writing about Malaysian characters in English. Most Malaysians don't speak proper English, and to have them do so in my stories felt wrong, somehow. Unnatural, even. But I had reservations about using Manglish -- still do, actually. I ended up writing stories with Caucasian characters set in Western places I experienced through the television. I think I have a few examples somewhere in this blog. Needless to say, my storytelling suffered from a lack of solid imagery, when one of my strengths is descriptive writing.

One day, a couple of years ago, I heaved a mighty puff and declared, "Screw it!" Indeed. Screw it all. What if my Malaysian characters are actually using Malaysian languages, but I give readers the illusion of Standard English? They can talk and think in a perfectly proper manner, like they would with their first language.

Here are some examples:

 

Alias walked home with the Imam beside him. They almost always read the Quran at Alias’s house every Thursday night. With a flashlight guiding them, Alias talked about Melur’s pregnancy, and their plans for the unborn child. The Imam listened to the excited expecting father, only interjecting once in a while to ask a few questions.

“When is the baby due?”

“In a couple of weeks, Insya-Allah.”

The Imam nodded. “That’s good. Is Melur planning to give birth at home or at the hospital in town?”

“We’re not sure yet. Mak Timah comes regularly to check up on Melur, and she offered to be Melur’s midwife should she choose to give birth at home.”

“Don’t be fooled by her age and small frame. Timah is a good and highly experienced midwife. She’s much better than the young doctors in town.”

Alias chuckled and nodded.

The house was in complete darkness when they arrived. Melur would always leave the porch light on whenever Alias was out at night. Alias fished out his set of keys from his pocket as the Imam aimed the flashlight at the doorknob.

A wave of overpowering smells assaulted them the moment Alias opened the door. He recognized the unmistakable smell of blood, as his repair shop was downwind from the local butcher’s, but it was only an undertone against something much stronger.

“Birth-water,” muttered the Imam, sending Alias into panic.

“Melur! Sayang, where are you?”

Without bothering to turn on the light, Alias bounded toward the bedroom, where the smell was strongest. He fumbled for the light switch, but he soon wished he had not turned the light on.

- Blood Debt

 

 

My parents’ house was old even by the village standard. The wooden walls and stilts were dark with age, and the woven nipah roof looked like it was due for a fresh change. The windows were closed except for the ones in the main hall at the front of the house. A woman in a plain white baju kurung stood at the base of the staircase leading to a small patio in front of the main entrance. Her long black hair whipped about with the strong wind, but her face was mostly covered. When I approached her, she walked away. I was too tired to care.

“Assalamualaikum,” I called out. “Abah? Are you in?”

The front doors creaked open and my father stepped out, squinting to see me. He looked much older than when I last saw him. The years without my mother had not been kind on Abah. He was gaunt, his hair more white than grey, and his white T-shirt hung limp on his body when it used to bulge at the abdomen. He had more wrinkles on his tanned brown face, but he still looked the same. Stern but kind. I felt a stab of guilt for not coming back to see him even during Eid holidays, for not picking up the phone to call him.

“Ana? Rohana, is that you?”

“I told you, you need to wear glasses, Abah.” I walked up the steep stairs and took his hand to kiss it.

For a while he stood perfectly still and unresponsive, but before I could stand straight again, he rested his left hand at the back of my head. “Welcome home, Ana. Welcome home.” His voice was deep, but a higher-pitched crack broke through.

- Visions (Expanded Horizons, Fallen: An Anthology of Demonic Horror)

 

 

I seldom provide English names to the Malay words I use in my stories. I let the descriptions or the dialogues explain themselves. My group-mates at Writing Dot Com seem to approve of this, and a majority of them are Americans who have never been to Malaysia. I trust my storytelling to give readers a taste of Malaysia, instead of generic stories set in an exotic place. I may not use Manglish, but I showcase Malaysian sensibilities and tastes.

But am I against Manglish? Here's an excerpt of a novel-in-progress:

 

A small lady with wrinkled skin clinging to her bones shuffled from the depths of the shop. “You want lanterns? Got big lantern, got small lantern, got square lantern. Round lantern like outside also have.” She pointed at the general direction of the ones hanging on the street. Her fingers, deformed with arthritis, shook with fine tremors.

“No lanterns, Auntie. I’m looking for Madam Tai.”

“Madam Tai not here. You buy lantern?”

“I know she is here, behind this shop, under the trapdoor.”

The old woman stopped smiling and folded her hands back close to her chest. “You no buy lantern, you go somewhere else. Madam Tai not here.”

“Auntie. I need to speak with the Stormcaller. It’s about Jin-Wei.”

- Stormcaller

 

You may think that one character is talking in English, while the other uses Manglish. But wait. My protagonist is actually using Malay, while the Auntie, a Chinese lady with poor command over the language, uses a broken version. When I use the Universal Translator, the fragmented words the Auntie uses remain...well, fragmented.

This is my primary concern over using Manglish in my writing: I'm afraid that by doing so, I will limit my readership to Malaysians, and that my works will become niche stories, novelties from a third-world country that should be given special attention but not taken seriously. I'm paralyzed by this fear that I cannot write a story using Manglish, even though I've had esteemed literary agents at #askagent telling me to write great stories no matter the label. Great stories sell.

I've had Malaysian reviewers at Writing Dot Com complaining that my stories aren't really Malaysian, just Mat Salleh stories clothed in Malaysian settings.

Hah! Those of you who don't know what Mat Salleh means feel excluded, right? Annoyed, even? This is one of my concerns as well. I don't want to exclude a potentially wider audience. Mat Salleh is a Malaysian term for Caucasians, by the way.

Anyway, publishers seem to like my Malaysian stories. This is what Damien Broderick (acclaimed Science Fiction author and ex-fiction-editor of COSMOS Magazine) told me: "I like your writing, and the touches of (for an Australian readership) exoticism."

Funny thing is, so far only Malaysian writers (or those who are used to Malaysians) want Malaysian stories in Manglish in order to make a story Malaysian. Others are satisfied with the foreign setting and cultures.

Here's an interesting exchange I've had with a Malaysian writer based in London: CLICK HERE. I didn't find Zen's blog by Googling my own name, honest!

As it is, Malaysian-English stories are too sparse to make a healthy comparison. For the time being, I have to settle for an author's individual preference.

So what do you think? Is a story only truly Malaysian if written in Manglish?

 

I part with this Korean videoclip that has been given a misheard Manglish subtitle treatment:

 

Comments

[Fadz]

I'm testing if commenting is easy with typepad

[Zen]

Hi, Fadzlishah! Thought I'd just let you know that I've linked to your blog from mine. :)

Thanks for the links to the Paku and Belacan videos -- I found them entertaining.

Incidentally, if Ivan Yeo is the guy who won one of the recent MPH short stories competitions, he's a good friend of my cousin's. Small world!

[Fadzlishah Johanabas]

Hello, Zen.

Call me Fadz, by the way. I'm glad the comment section is not broken. Just transferred to Typepad, so I'm still smoothing the kinks. Thanks for stopping by.

I did a review on the anthology of winning entries somewhere down the line.

[Breanna]

Personally I would find a story completely in Manglish to be more difficult to engage with than if the Manglish was just in the dialogue or whatever; but then, I find your stories about Malaysia to be almost totally accessible. I don't know if this is good or bad, but before I started reading your stuff what I knew about Malaysia was that some of my clothes were made there and they have the Twin Towers. If you can reach me, you can reach anybody!

[Coach Accessories]

Does not mean to stop caring, it means you can't do it for someone else!

[Nike Shox Classic]

THIS GOOD ARTICLE CAN LET US HARVEST MANY.....

[Cheap Air Jordan]

GREAT ARTICLE, I LIKE IT!!!