Language in Brunei

Traditionally, words ending in -o tended to refer to people and generally had a negative connotation: wino, psycho, wacko, etc. However, in...

The other day, my wife went into a restaurant and ordered a cup of doujiang ('beancurd juice') to take away. When the lady handed i...

I wrote the Wikipedia page on Brunei English . But subsequently, anyone anywhere can edit the material. And sometimes complete rubbish gets ...

A friend was arranging to meet with me in Bukit Beruang, near Tutong. But the message actually stated Bukit Versing rather than Bukit Beruan...

How do you pronounce 'mischievous'? According to Wells (2008, Longman Pronunciation Dictionary , 3rd Edition), the standard pronunc...

We often make allusions to things and events in the world about us, and sometimes we make allusions to books and films. Yesterday, my daught...

I was recently told that young people in Brunei write messages like this when texting: im finna go to store The more formal version of thi...

Voiceless TH, the sound at the start of words such as 'thin' and 'three', can be something of a shibboleth: some people worr...

Nowadays, few people learn Greek. I learned the language from the age of 9 till 13, and I hated every minute of it. So thank goodness nobody...

Chinese people say ‘jiā yóu’ (加油, "add oil"）to encourage others to redouble their efforts, particularly at sporting events. It is ...

I have done lots of work on the intelligibility of English in Asia. Within this context, it is worth acknowledging that many accents of Engl...

I spent last week in Hong Kong as a guest of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Department of English Language. It is interesting to...

Like everyone else, I use Wikipedia all the time to find out about things; and it has a huge amount of incredibly valuable information. Howe...

I have been in Hong Kong this last week. Hong Kong English is interesting; but I was not there long enough to gain many insights. I will sha...

I love this cartoon: At UBD, we have no teaching between mid-May and the start of August; and that is the time I can get most done. I thi...

The Wikipedia page on Kedayan ( here ) claims it is "the de facto national language of Brunei", which is rather startling, as mos...

Here's a paragraph from page 1 of the Media Permata of 23 May, 2018: Najib, yang juga Anggota Parlimen Pekan, mengesahkan perkara itu ...

I have always claimed that blends in English tend to combine the first half of one word with the second half of another: 'smog' = sm...

I was just listening to a Titah (speech) by HM Sultan of Brunei to celebrate Brunei's 34th National Day. What is splendid about this tit...

The Malay promoted in Brunei is based on that of Malaysia; but being close to Indonesia, it may be influenced by Bahasa Indonesia to a certa...