Manglish is an English-based creole used in Malaysia.
They also use British English, which is considered to be a second language rather than a foreign language in Malaysia, but it is a very idiosyncratic type of British English and takes some getting used to.
For a start they use some very quaint words and expressions, which have fallen out of use in England. For example, children are always complaining of being scolded by their parents or their teachers – whereas I don’t think a British child has used the word scolded for about a hundred years. Likewise, they talk about plucking fruit from trees, which has a definite Shakespearean ring to it. And I also is used where we would say me too.
Rude words and offensive words are also very different:
‘Teacher! Jacob just say buttock to me!’
I then have to feign outrage at such atrocious language.
The rudest word of all, referred to only as the ‘s’ word, is … stupid. It’s so shocking that a child will gasp if they hear it, or refuse to read it aloud if it crops up in one of their British reading scheme books.
Conversely, shit is not an offensive term at all, and I’ve had five year-olds who routinely exclaim ‘Oh shit, Miss Louise – I’ve broken my pencil!’
On and off are both verbs in Manglish, as in:
‘Can you on the airconditioning, please?’
A whole variety of words are used much more in Manglish than in English, such as also, already, got.
Got is used all the time, and exists in a variety of tenses, including the future, I will got.
The suffix –lah is added onto words willy-nilly, and doesn’t seem to mean anything at all – maybe emphasis, but I’m not sure. For example, a child memorably said to a fellow teacher when he found out her age:
‘So old, and not yet married-lah!’
Can and cannot – never abbreviated to can’t – are used all the time, and ‘can can‘ isn’t a dance, it’s merely a strong affirmation. So a typical conversation in a shop might go like this:
Mend this, can?
Mend? No, cannot-lah.
Buy new one same same, can?
New one same same, can can.
So, although I haven’t learnt much Malay yet, my Manglish is coming on a treat-lah.