Language in Brunei

Last week, I was briefly in the UK, and by good fortune, it was the first day at school for my grandson, Oliver. Here he is coming out from ...

In my previous post, I discussed blends in Malay such as cerpen ('short story') and tadika ('kindergarten'), and I raised ...

In my introductory linguistics course this week, I mentioned blends such as smog (= smoke + fog ) and motel (= motor + hotel ), where a ...

Suppose I said the following: I have always been happy until now. Do you think I am still happy? In my variety of English, this would mean ...

In my previous post, I discussed the pronunciation of the vowel in the second syllable of tasik ('lake'), specifically that it may ...

These two signs are at different places along the Tasik Lama to Markucing forest trail. Note the variable spelling of tasik ('lake'...

I saw this cartoon on page 24 of The Brunei Times of 5 August 2012: Clearly, the photographer doesn't know any phonetics. The reason w...

In my previous post, I discussed the difference between anak yatim and orphan . My UBD colleague, Adrian Clynes , suggested a similar issue...

My UBD colleague, Malai Ayla , asked me this question: what is the English for the Malay term anak yatim ? My dictionary shows this: Howeve...

I am currently in the UK, playing with my two grandchildren, Oliver aged 4 and Elsie aged 2. I only see them once a year, so each time I see...

Yesterday I attended the viva examination for Noor Fadhilah Mat Nayan at the University of Reading. Her thesis is on the intonation of Engli...

The pile-up of nouns in newspaper headlines is notorious. But I find this sub-headline from today's on-line Guardian article about the b...

This post has nothing to do with Brunei. But it's something I thought was interesting, so never mind. I just saw this paragraph in an a...

On the forest trail between Bukit Karamunting and Tasek Lama, there are two wasai ('waterfalls') named after two residents of Kampu...

The Malay for long-sighted is rabun dekat (lit. 'blind close') and for short-sighted it is rabun jauh (lit. 'blind far'). ...

I was just reading a BBC article about the financial situation in Europe ( here ), and there were two instances of teh (instead of the ) in...

I was just reading that sort of is three times more common in British English than American English, while kind of is five times more comm...

In my previous post, I discussed the spelling pronunciation in Malay of Budapest with [f] instead of [p] at the start of the final syllable....

The pronunciation of names in different languages is always interesting. The morning, on the 8:00 RTB radio news, I heard the announcer stat...

For a lifelong Chelsea supporter such as me, last night was a bit special. It's not just that we finally won the thing; it was the way w...