Language in Brunei

I have previously discussed lexical repetition, sometimes involving one term in English followed by the equivalent in Malay. Here is another...

The word walkaton ('walkathon') gets used quite often in Malay, as in this extract from page 2 of Media Permata of 23 April 2012: ...

I recently wrote a book review in which I included the statement: ... provides an historical perspective on the promotion of English in Indi...

In a previous post ( here ), I discussed doublets in Malay such as berhati-hati dan berwaspada ('careful and cautious'), where the ...

On the whole, Malay spelling is predictable: you can determine the spelling of a word from its pronunciation; and you can predict the pronun...

The Cupertino effect is when a typing error gets introduced by an over-enthusiastic spell-checker. The derivation is from cooperation (with...

In my previous post, I included a picture of me giving a presentation at the BELTA conference last week here in UBD. It is hard to see me, a...

Last Friday, I gave a presentation at the Brunei English Language Teachers' Association (BELTA) conference held in the Language Centre a...

Currently, there is a news story in Brunei about someone who tricked lots of people into paying a $300 administration fee to get a fictitiou...

Last Sunday, I went on a Brunei Nature Society trip to Selirong Island in the north of Temburong, to walk through the mangrove forest there....

Here is the headline from page 2 of Media Permata of 28 March 2012: It says "New ATM machne in Temburong". I wonder how many othe...

In my previous two posts, I have discussed non-standard use of the plural ‑s suffix in Brunei English. One quite common pattern is the use o...

In my previous post, I suggested that the occurrence of an unexpected ‑s suffix on nouns in Brunei English occurs most often for logically c...

I am currently doing some analysis of the grammar of Brunei English, based on the recordings of 53 UBD undergraduates (38 female and 15 male...

Every language seems to have a colourful expression to describe wasting time doing nothing in particular. In English we say you are twiddlin...

One of my colleagues was recently photographed texting while she was eating. The picture then appeared on Facebook, and she was criticised u...

In my previous post, I discussed spelling pronunciation, including the fact that the 't' in often is sometimes pronounced even thou...

The influence of spelling on pronunciation is widespread. For example, in often , the 't' used to be silent, but many people now pro...

Just recently, someone contacted me offering to arrange for advertising on my blog. Apparently, there would be links around the side or at t...

The plural of mouse is, of course, mice . Well, it is if it refers to the little, furry animal. But what if it refers to the computer gadge...