Language in Brunei

How do you pronounce gaol ? If you are in Brunei, you might not know this spelling; but it occurs in the UK. Here is a street sign in Herefo...

I saw this headline in the Times of 4 July 2015. When I first read it, I could not understand the final word on the first word: chicest . I...

I was recently in Japan, where some of the signs can be quite challenging. Take this one, on the outside wall of a Buddhist temple. I think ...

The word jerayawara ('roadshow') is (I believe) mostly used in Brunei, though I note one entry in the Malaysian PRPM resource ( her...

I recently saw this sign in the washroom at the Bangar ferry terminal in Termburong: The Malay says 'Throw rubbish into the dustbin pr...

The level of complexity and allusion in some cartoons is stunning. Take the following Dilbert cartoon: It involves two people, Alice and Wal...

I saw this headline for an article on page 11 of Media Permata of 18 May 2015: This can be translated as: Young people of Sabah urged to th...

One of my favourite views of Brunei is from the forest trail in Tasek Lama, where I go walking with my wife two or three times every week. T...

Last week, the radio news and the local newspapers were dominated by the wedding of Prince Malik, or Yang Teramat Mulia Paduka Seri Duli Pen...

On page M3 of the Media Permata of 24 March, I read that some school children had been involved in Jungle Tracking . I wondered if this is ...

It seems to be the common practice for universities around the world to adopt three-letter abbreviations. So you find UBD and ITB in Brunei,...

This week, I registered for TelBru's e-bill facility, which lets me monitor my usage of the internet as well as pay my telephone bills e...

I was reminded of the difficulties of using a Malay dictionary when I tried to look up pengecas . To use a Malay dictionary, you need to id...

In today's tutorial, Ishamina Athirah asked her students whether 'creativity' can have a plural: 'creativities'. All h...

When I teach phonetic transcription, I tell my students that all syllables must have one vowel and only one vowel. (I include a schwa in the...

In a recent post, I mentioned my surprise to see my picture in the newspaper as a result of my recent trip to Turkey. Here it is again, in t...

I was listening to a news report about the search for the crashed Air Asia plane, and when I heard the Indonesian official mention the '...

I constantly find it amazing how many times my photo turns up in the newspapers. There was even a recent report in the Borneo Bulletin ( he...

I really don't understand the logic of the spelling of English words borrowed into Malay. If 'th' becomes 't' (as in tem...

My trip to Turkey was on a tour with about 40 people, too many for a single bus. So we split into two: one for Chinese people, with a Chines...