Language in Brunei

This morning, a colleague sent me this message: As a data freak, I thought you might be interested in this alert sent to me by Nature. So,...

When I find something in Malay I don't understand, sometimes I try translating it into English to see if that helps. Today I saw sehenti...

A few days ago, one of my colleagues told me that he was stealing some of my ideas to use in his class. I replied that if he stole somethin...

In recent posts, I have discussed the pronunciation of words borrowed from English into Malay, especially those with 'g' or 'a...

Most words that are borrowed from English to Malay and have /æ/ in the English are spelled with 'e' rather than 'a' in Malay...

Something I don't understand is why some English words borrowed into Malay retain a 'g' while others do not. For example, agenda...

In my previous post, I discussed a Malay alphabet chart for kids, expressing surprise at the number of words borrowed from English that were...

I just saw this colourful alphabet poster for sale in a local shop, to enable Malay children to learn the letters of the alphabet: What is r...

In the forest, it is really important for trees to grow tall, to enable them to reach the canopy. However, once a tree has reached the canop...

I have mentioned lexical doublets in Malay before (e.g. here and here ). In yesterday's titah ('royal speech') in celebration ...

A 'false friend' is a word that is borrowed from one language to another and then undergoes a change in meaning. It can be really tr...

What is the plural of 'bus'? I have always thought it was 'buses'; but then someone sent me something that included the word...

Some mistranslations are just amusing, while others could have rather more serious consequences. I saw this on a hand drier in one of the t...

My UBD colleague, James McLellan, sent me a link to an article published in the on-line Borneo Post of 4 September 2014 ( here ), discussing...

False friends are words that are borrowed from one language into another, but then they undergo a change in meaning. Alternatively, they may...

The results of the Brunei-Cambridge 'A' levels were announced yesterday. Of the 610 candidates, 404 (66.2%) obtained at least one ...

I have previously discussed the use of 'pieces' in Brunei English, such as the following from The Brunei Times of 25/12/2011: The ...

Sometimes translators just give up when they try to deal with different kinds of food. Here is an extract from a brochure output by the Mini...

Here is a headline from page 2 of Media Permata of 26 July: Ada majikan tidak bayar 'overtime' pekerja which might be glossed as:...

I just read a short article in the Guardian Online ( here ) about the invented word 'oxt'. Apparently, if today is Friday, then ...