One may ask whether “Manglish” (Malaysian mangled English) is really that “horrendous”. I think our usage can be charming, utilitarian and even creative for which we should be proud of.

We don’t have to follow English exactly the same elaborate way it is spoken or written by the British. It is not our first language.

Besides English is now an international language. The English have no monopoly to the way it is spoken or written – with local accents, flavours and additions. Indeed the English language is richer for its borrowings from others. Coup de’etat, detour, dossier, laissez faire, fait accompli, nouveau riche were borrowed from the French as amok, paddy gong, orang-utan, satay and sarong, borrowed from Malay.

The process is both ways : we have also borrowed from the English and created new words like “gostan”, a reference to going backwards, retracting a position, back tracking. This is a very creative expression inspired by the word “go astern”, astern being the back or rear of a ship or boat, and going astern being popularly used for the vessel going stern backwards.

Language is affected by culture and history. At least between ourselves what’s wrong using “kwei lo” or “Mat Sallehs” in substitution of “Caucasians”?

If our usage is “simple, short, concise, straight-to-point, effective”, maybe the British should consider following some of our expressions. After all, being “simple, short, concise, straight-to-point, effective” is the first object of any communication.

I don’t really think there is anything wrong when, for examples, we spice up our spoken English with local embellishments at the end of sentence like “lah” and “man” for emphasis especially when speaking to fellow Malaysians. For practical purposes of avoiding being misunderstood, we should of course try to desist from using these slang expressions when speaking with foreigners not familiar with them.

Interestingly we Malaysians can be quite flexible in the sense that we can change their speaking styles in accordance with the person being spoken to. We may adopt a completely different slang and accent when speaking to someone of a different race. Some of us speak English to the Brits, American, Australian, Indians differently as we would to own Malaysians. This is to facilitate understanding, a utilitarian objective but where people by training of their mother tongue just cannot pronounce the word properly, don’t laugh at them.

The Chinese and the Japanese often switch their “l”s for ‘r’s. I have heard some Chinese (Malaysians) say “don’t play play” (intending to mean, be serious or view the importance of a matter) coming across as “Don’t pray pray”. (Another pronounce “rape” as “rap” “rap”…. Then the Japanese pronounce their “general election” as “general erection”.

I thought it was quite charming – just like “Got any lobang or jalan ahhh” referring to opportunity!
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Whilst written and spoken language should be “simple, short, concise, straight-to-point, effective”, the contentious part relating the Manglish is whether these objectives should be achieved at the expense of turning upside down and bastardising English rules concerning grammatical structure.

“Why are you behaving in that way?” or “why has the situation become that way?” may be compendiously expressed “Why like that?” (a translation from Cantonese?) Or the Brits’ “I haven’t seen you in a long time” become in manglish “Long time no see” with all rules of prepositions thrown to the wind.

“La” and “mah” are new suffixes of Malaysian creation functioning expediently without more words to explain a whole gamut of emotion by their inflectional ending. The difference between “I didn’t know la” and “I didn’t know mah” is that in the case of the former, the person is not seeking understanding from the other whilst in the second case the expression imports a touch of regret and apology, implicitly seeking understanding.

The suffix “what” is somewhat used differently – not to convey emotional states – but to express with brutal efficiency in one word that normally in English would take four : for example, instead of saying “it is plain that” or “it is obvious that” UMNO’s cronies are corrupt or rich, in Manglish it is condensed to UMNO’s cronies are corrupt or rich what!

The word “arh” is used top denote question mark. You sure you want to marry her arh? Is menat to emphasise doubt and that the other person better think carefully. “Meh” is sometimes used for same purpose as “arh” as for example, “you think you very smart meh?” (note the concomitant dispensation of the subject verb agreement “are” between “you” and “very”.

So Manglish is often used in an efficient way to say things with maximum effect and nuance and minimum words but the big question is : can these objectives of economy and brevity of words be pursued in sacrifice of grammatical structure and dispensation of prepositions and subject verb agreement; can we still hold claim that our Manglish is an offshoot and a branch of the broader tree of Enghlish as internationally spoken if disregard the grammatical rules? Are grammatical rules so integral part of a language that to dispense them is to jettison the whole language overboard and it is no more there or, no, the language (English) is still being used but modified to make its use more efficient?

The test is always that of substantiality with an arbitrary benchment delineated at say 50%. If for example 90% of the language usage is English and the disregard of grammar rules and addition of local suffixes like “what”, “Mah” and “Lah” constitute only 10% or 20% of the content, then I suppose it is still “substantially” English.

However, if the situation is one in which 50% or more of these local variations, then it is probably justified to say that it is no more English, it being some kind of local language borrowing heavily from English.