IF you are a fan of Malay TV drama, you often find actors blurting out in English in the middle of the dialogue. I don’t know the exact reason why the scriptwriter, director and producer allow this. Perhaps they want to portray the reality of today’s Malay society.
You see, it is comical and amusing to see an actress say “Fine!” to end an argument with her boyfriend after the exchange of words between them in Bahasa Melayu. Why can’t the actors use “Baiklah” instead?
Some makciks in the kampung may ask what “fine” means in this context. They understand all that lovers’ squabble and all the body language that come in between but they probably are wondering why use the word “fine” to end an argument. From these makciks’ understanding of the English language, “fine” is used and said only when everything is going smoothly without any hitches. Fine.
Many other English expressions have also caught on with Malay society and “invaded” daily conversations, especially on social media platforms.
“Oh my God” has become “omaigod”, “awesome” turns into “ohsom”, “keep it up” is “kipidap”, and “don’t give up” is “dongibap”, just to cite a few examples.
There are, however, English words that have been downright abused.
To understand them, one needs to comprehend the context and how they are said, usually aided by some body language. Words like “action”, “sound”, “tackle” and “power”, just to name a few, have been pervasive in our daily conversations for as long as I can remember — both online and offline.
More often than not, words such as these are casually and incorrectly used. Context-wise, “action” means to show off, “sound” means to advise with some degree of anger, “tackle” is to entice a member of the opposite sex, and “power” is to describe something very good, eg food that is extremely delicious. Just examine your WhatsApp threads, you’d find words such as these uttered all the time.
If you think only Bahasa Melayu has been tainted, think again. It’s nothing new as we have had the migration of English words into the Malay language since the colonial days. In fact, languages the world over have evolved. The migration of foreign words into a native language is unavoidable.
Some words used in daily conversations could begin as a fad and argot (jargon or slang of a particular group or class of society), but after a decade or over a century or so, they seep into the native language and become accepted in its vocabulary. Look how English accepted the Malay word, “amok”.
I was particularly amused when I first heard the word bekwoh spoken by the locals in Kelantan and Terengganu. Bekwoh, it seemed, originated from an English expression “big work” to mean kenduri or feast. Since a typical Malay feast required numerous hands to help, the word “big work” was knowingly created. Some Kelantanese friends of mine related a funny but unverified story about how the quirky word came about.
At the turn of the 20th century, a British survey officer (SO) and his Malay assistants were said to have stumbled upon an east coast village where a huge number of people were carrying out gotong-royong, preparing a lavish kenduri for a dignitary’s household.
He had presumably asked his assistant: “What festivity is this?”
The assistants were equally puzzled but after asking the locals, one tried to describe the event in a smattering of, or rather, broken English: “All village people here come-come together and cook-cook food for marriage.” The Englishman then exclaimed: “Indeed, that’s big!”, looking at the number of people handling huge woks and crock pots preparing for the feast.
One of the locals then asked the assistant: “Ghapo omputih ni ngoyak? Dio nyapong kawe ko? (What did the white man say? Is he insulting us?)
The assistant then asked the Englishman what he meant by “that’s big”. The SO, in a simpler way to explain what he saw, said: “Bligh me, that’s a huge amount of work.” He further simplified his words: “Big work” and stretched his hands wide to indicate the enormous work undertaken by the villagers.
The assistant then told the villagers: “Dio ngoyak bekwoh” (He said big work). Some tried to pronounce “big work” correctly but somehow, due to the deep Kelantanese accent, the tongue just got twisted and the locals found it was easier to say bekwoh.
Hence, bekwoh began its journey to become an alternative word to kenduri for the locals in Kelantan and Terengganu.
Up north in Penang and Kedah, there seems to be plenty of words originating from the English language as well.
For example, on a daily basis you’d hear words like belen as in balance, cékélat (not chocolate but as in sweets), jek (to apple polish someone), karan (electricity), mérton (hammer), piau (pure), sepbot (cupboard), singgam (chewing gum) and spenda (undergarment).
So next time you city dwellers are up north or in the east coast attending a kenduri or on a road trip, be sure to look up some of these quirky words on the Internet. It would be of big help if you find yourselves in a bind in understanding what has just been said by the locals.
C’est la vie.
The writer is a former NST journalist, now a film scriptwriter whose penchant is finding new food haunts in the country