Kebersehan

Have a look at this sign, by the side of a road near the centre of BSB, the capital of Brunei. It means "Take care of cleanliness". What is interesting is the spelling kebersehan, as the Standard Malay spelling would be kebersihan, with 'i' rather than 'e' in the third syllable.

This reflects two things:

• In Brunei, there are only three vowels, so /i/ and /e/ are not distinguished.
• In Standard Malay, final /i/ in a closed syllable (such as in the root bersih) tends to be quite open, so it might be regarded as an allophone of /e/ rather than /i/.

Note, for example with regard to the second point, that terimah kasih ('thank you') is often said with [e] in the final syllable.

Nevertheless, it is quite surprising that non-standard spelling is used on this sign, especially as kebersihan is quite common on signs around Brunei.