English Borrowings

There are lots of borrowings from English into Standard Malay, but most borrowed words remain reasonably transparent: lif ('lift'), pos ('post'), psikologi ('psychology'), aktiviti ('activity'), ekonomi ('economy'), kem ('camp'), setem ('stamp'), arkib ('archive'), etc.

In contrast some of the borrowings into Brunei Malay undergo rather a lot of phonological change. My dictionary shows borrowings from English with 'Ig' (short for 'Inggeris'), and it can be fun to go through and try to work out what the original words were.

For example, gustan ('reverse') seems to come from 'go astern', guhit ('go forward') is presumably from 'go ahead', isbuk ('fridge') is from 'ice-box', and stimbai ('to get ready') is derived from 'stand by'.

Occasionally, the dictionary fails to mark some with 'Ig', possibly because the origin is too well hidden. Thus parimpan is from 'frying pan', but the dictionary does not mark it as from English.

Often the representation of a borrowed word gives some insight into the phonology of Brunei Malay. For example, the English 'ice cream' becomes sakirim, illustrating the tendency for a consonant-vowel syllable and the avoidance of the /skr/ cluster.

In other cases, the reason for the change is hard to determine. For example, 'ticket' becomes kikit. Maybe there is a tendency for consonants to be repeated, which might explain why the medial /k/ occurs at the start as well. But takut ('fear') is a perfectly good indigenous word, and it has a /t/-/k/-/t/ sequence. My colleague, Adrian Clynes, suggests that words indicating strong emotions often break the rules of phonology, and maybe takut fits into this category.

This seems a fascinating topic for further investigation.

More on Intonation

In my previous post, I discussed the learning of English intonation, particularly the presentation given in Zhenjiang by Francis Nolan and also the use in China of John Wells's book on intonation.

John Wells has discussed this issue in his own blog (here), agreeing with my contention that there is no need for learners of English to try to imitate every single feature of British intonation, particularly the fine detail such as the tones at the start of an intonational phrase that are covered in later chapters of the book.

I am trying to learn Malay, and I try to imitate the recordings I have as closely as possible. On the other hand, I have no delusions that I will ever sound like a native speaker, especially given my limited opportunities to actually speak Malay to anyone; and I don't particularly want to sound like a native speaker. My goal is to achieve clear, fluent speech, to be able to say whatever I want clearly and intelligibly. And I feel that that should be the goal of learners of English. It really doesn't make a lot of sense to try and pretend you come from England if you don't.

Francis Nolan made another astute point in connection with this: if you speak perfect RP English, with all the tonal distinctions of a native speaker, then listeners will expect you also to be familiar with all aspects of English culture. They will expect you to know who Ena Sharples was, and they will feel free to make obscure allusions to Monty Python sketches. If you are not familiar with such things, then you are better off speaking well, clearly, and fluently with a little bit of a non-native accent.

British Intonation

In his presentation at the recent conference held at the Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Francis Nolan argued that, when speaking English, it is important to get the focus of information right using standard sentence stress, and it is also important to get lexical stress right as otherwise people will not be able to understand the words. However, it is not so important to imitate the finer distinctions of the intonational tunes of native speakers, partly because there is a huge amount of variation in tone usage in Britain and elsewhere, so listeners are accustomed to hearing substantial differences among the people they talk to. To support this, he played lots of data from speakers from around the UK and Ireland, and I thought he made a very convincing case.

The next day, some participants came up and thanked him for his wonderful presentation and then asked him to explain the difference between a high head and a rising head in an intonational phrase. In other words, they were asking about details that he had been arguing really don't make a lot of difference.

When he tried to make this point once more, they insisted that the difference must be important, as it is shown in English Intonation: An Introduction by John Wells.

I don't remember the exact examples they used, but I believe they were from page 225 of the book, which discusses possible responses to the question "Where are your essays?":The text in the book observes that (i) shows emotional involvement, (ii) is factual and unemotional, (iii) is a protest, and (iv) is an emphatic protest.

While this is almost certainly an accurate description of the intonational patterns of native speakers of RP British English, there is no way that listeners will misunderstand the message if a non-native speaker uses a rising head rather than a high head. But the questioner was adamant that the distinction is absolutely vital. It is in the book by John Wells, she insisted, so it must be important.

I doubt very much if John Wells has ever argued that learners of English need to imitate every single nuance of the RP system of intonation. But it seems impossible to get this message across in China.

One further issue is pertinent here: it is extremely difficult, without sounding condescending, to convey the message that learners of English do not need to imitate British English so closely. And I don't know how to get round this. It is something I strongly believe, but at the same time I am aware that I probably sound quite patronising when I say it.

However, it really is true: if you speak clearly and well, so listeners can understand everything you say with ease, then they will be paying attention to what you are saying rather than how you say it. And while it is absolutely vital always to speak clearly and well, there is no need to try and pretend that you come from England.

Pronunciation Norms in China

In July, while I was at the University of Regensburg in Germany, I discussed the pronunciation norms I encountered (here), observing that German speakers of English adhere quite strictly to an external norm, usually that of either the UK or USA, and there is little acceptance in the possibility of a localised pronunciation norm. In contrast, in an outer-circle place such as Singapore, there is more widespread acceptance that it is OK to sound Singaporean just so long as you speak clearly and well. In fact, in Singapore, for a local person to sound completely British sounds rather absurd.

Like Germany, China is in the expanding circle, and there is a strong focus towards native norms of pronunciation, either British or American. Sometimes this borders on the obsessive, with speakers attempting to achieve every last nuance of RP patterns of intonation, even though minor differences in a rising or level head to an intonational phrase really don't make that much difference. I'll discuss this issue again in my next posting, in connection with the reaction to the presentation by the other keynote speaker at the conference I was attending in Zhenjiang, Francis Nolan of Cambridge University.

However, there is one feature of native speech that people in China are reluctant to imitate. In my presentation, I pointed out (playing lots of examples) that BBC announcers regularly omit the word-final /t/ or /d/ in phrases like 'last night', 'most people' and 'world class'. But people in China are convinced that this is lazy pronunciation and generally avoid it. So, in fact, there are limitations to the degree to which they imitate native patterns of speech.

(If you want to read my paper that analyses /t,d/ deletion in BBC speech, it is available on-line here.)

same hue

It is really too easy to find signs in China that are poorly translated; and this will be the last post I will do on that topic.

Some mis-translations can be revealing about the speech of the sign-writer, such as the use of 'sport' instead of 'spot' in my previous post. And others can indicate a dependence on looking things up in a dictionary without checking with someone who has reasonable competence in English, such as my earlier post about 'Disperses the channel'. But this one near a pagoda in the Jinshan Park in Zhenjiang has me baffled:While there is nothing too much wrong with the English, the Chinese actually says "river sky one glance", the idea being that you can get a panoramic view from the top of the pagoda, taking in everything in a single glance. So where does 'hue' come from?

It seems that the sign writer in this case does not understand Chinese, and has mistaken the character 览 to mean 'colour' ('hue') rather than the true meaning 'to glance'. Very strange!

Scenic Sport

In my previous post, I mentioned the poor English of signs in China, often caused by depending on a dictionary rather than someone with reasonable competence in English.

However, in this sign, the writer has clearly not used a dictionary, as any dictionary would tell you it should be spot rather than sport.Before I went to China, I was under the impression that most learners of English in China follow an American model. However, it is unlikely that anyone with an American accent would confuse sport and spot, because of the /r/ in sport. In contrast, someone whose pronunciation was based on British English might well make this mistake, as there is no /r/ in sport in a Southern British accent, and the two words can easily be confused by a speaker with no vowel length distinctions. In fact, pronouncing sport and spot identically is common in Singapore. (Maybe the sign-writer actually came from Singapore!)

I was told while I was there that many young people aspire to speak American English, because it is regarded as modern and cool and also because they watch lots of Amercan films (sorry, movies). But the overwhelming majority of speakers still aim for a British accent.

English in China

I have just spent five days in China, as a guest of the Jiangsu University of Science and Technology in Zhenjiang (Jiangsu Province). This is the entrance gate of the campus.One of the reasons I have not written any entries in the past week is that my blog cannot be accessed from China, and that is something I confirmed while I was there. The site is blocked. Well, I guess it means that nobody there can get offended by anything I say!

It has become almost an international sport to comment on the poor English found on signs in China, so I feel I should contribute my own offerings. This sign is in a scenic park in Zhenjiang. 'Escape Route' might have been a better translation into English. My guess is that 'Disperses the channel' arises because someone looked up the words in a dictionary and failed to consult anyone who can actually speak English.

agak (again)

In my previous post, I discussed the dictionary entry for the Malay word agak and suggested that 'pretty' was not a very good gloss for it.

In fact, there are some further issues regarding this entry; and for this, I should show the entry in full:This shows that, with the appropriate prefix, agak means 'to guess'.

The issue here is that the core meaning of agak is 'guess' or 'estimate'. (I have confirmed this by asking various Malay colleagues at UBD.) But the most common meaning of the word is 'quite' or 'very' (or 'pretty', if you go with my dictionary). So, which should be shown in the dictionary: the core meaning, or the most common meaning?

This is a conundrum encountered by all lexicographers. For example, Judy Gilbert, an American pronunciation teacher and writer, has suggested a similar issue with the English word summit: its core meaning is 'the top of a mountain'; but its most common meaning nowadays is 'a meeting between national leaders'. So, which of these should be given priority in a dictionary?

My own belief is that they should both be listed, with 'top of a mountain' clearly shown as the core meaning, but 'important meeting' also listed.

However, one way or another, the gloss of agak as 'pretty' is pretty bad!

agak

In my previous posting, I discussed the entry in my dictionary for the Malay word lumayan and suggested that it is misleading to give 'handsome' as the English equivalent.

Here is another entry which I regard as rather strange.The problem with this is that, in English, pretty as an adverb premodifying an adjective ('pretty good', 'pretty strange, 'pretty sure', ...) only occurs in informal usage, and the dictionary fails to mention this. Furthermore, this is not the basic meaning of pretty.

I feel it would have been better to offer 'quite' or 'very' as the English equivalent of agak.

lumayan

Here's a rather surprising entry in my Malay-English dictionary:The trouble with this is that, in English, the word handsome in the sense of 'lucrative' really only occurs together with the word profit. It is almost like a fixed phrase, and so glossing the word lumayan as handsome is rather misleading.

Now, one shouldn't make statements like I have just done without first checking one's facts, preferably in a large corpus of modern data. I don't have easy access to one of those, but a quick-and-easy way of checking things is to search for the phrase (in double quotes) in Google. And that gives the following results:

93,800 : handsome profit
15,300 : handsome prize
 6,860 : handsome cost
 4,860 : handsome wage
 2,020 : handsome advantage

This suggests that, although handsome can sometimes occur with other words, handsome profit is by far the most common collocation, so my claim that it is a fixed phrase is partially confirmed.

The trouble with dictionaries is that they don't tend to show collocational information like that. Now, to its credit, my dictionary does offer an example sentence, and indeed, most of the illustrative sentences it gives are incredibly valuable. Even so, I feel that giving the English equivalent of lumayan as handsome is a bit misleading.

that'll teach you

My daughter lives in Australia. When I asked her about the recent election, she told me that she had had trouble voting, maybe because she had only registered during the last hour of the last day of the registration period. In response I said to her, "That'll teach you to leave things till the last moment."

Just think about that sentence. If I teach you to play the piano, I hope that my teaching will help you to improve a bit; and if I teach you phonetics, I also expect you to learn something about phonetics.

So why do we say "That'll teach you to ...." when what we mean is exactly the opposite. What I really meant was: That will give you a good lesson NOT to leave things to the last moment.

So why do we say exactly the opposite of what we mean? And how come people understand a sentence like the one I used without batting an eyelid, and usually without noticing that there might be something peculiar about it?

Language is sometimes a deep mystery!

penyelia

When teaching introductory morphology, I occasionally discuss the word structure of Malay, to enable students to appreciate that the linguistic analysis of language does not apply just to English.

One important issue for Malay morphology is identifying the root of a word; and I ask my students what the root of penyelia ('supervisor') is.

The answer is: selia. And you have to know this if you want to find the word in a dictionary. The problem here is that selia does not exist as an independent morpheme, so we might describe it as a bound root. Here is the entry in my Collins dictionary:What is rather surprising is that most of my first-year students do not know this, and they look bemused when I tell them that selia is the root. This indicates that they would not be able to use a Malay dictionary to look up the meaning of a word such as this.

I find this very strange. I always have an English dictionary available, and I regularly check the meaning or pronunciation of English words. But speakers of Malay in Brunei do not seem to do this for their own language.

perang

In my previous post, I discussed the advantage of Malay spelling, as 'ngg' indicates the pronunciation /ŋg/ while 'ng' indicates /ŋ/, whereas English spelling provides no help over this distinction. Indeed, Malay spelling is much more transparent than English spelling. However there are some exceptions.

Pronunciation is generally not shown in Malay dictionaries, presumably on the assumption that it can be predicted from the spelling. But one problem is that the letter 'e' in Malay can be pronounced /e/ or /ə/, and it is often not possible to guess which one. So, for example, perang can be pronounced /pəraŋ/, in which case it means 'war', or it can be pronounced /peraŋ/, in which case it means 'brown'. The Kamus Dwibahasa published by Oxford shows these two words as follows:This gives no indication that the two words might be pronounced differently, which seems a real problem. I believe that, in failing to provide this information, this dictionary is flawed.

In contrast, some dictionaries do show the distinction. Here are the same two words in Collins Easy Learning Kamus DwibahasaThis is much more helpful, as /e/ is indicated using an acute accent over the letter: 'é'. It seems, therefore, that the Collins dictionary is far superior.

There are plenty of other contrasts like this:

• bela ('to keep') vs béla ('to defend')
• beri ('to give') vs béri ('berry')
• semak ('undergrowth') vs sémak ('to check')

and doubtless many more. The Collins dictionary helpfully shows all these distinctions, while the Oxford one does not.

Junggle

There is a sign at Tasek Lama advising people to be careful in following the Jungle Trail because of landslides. Originally, it was spelt "Junggle Trail" (though this has now been corrected).

What is interesting about this is that the use of 'ngg' would be correct in Malay, as 'ng' is pronounced /ŋ/ while 'ngg' is pronounced /ŋg/ − a very useful distinction. In contrast, English spelling does not show whether a word is pronounced with /ŋ/ or /ŋg/ in the middle. For example singer and banger both have /ŋ/, while finger and anger both have /ŋg/, but there is no help from the spelling to show this.

The reason for the different pronunciations in English is morphological: both singer and banger consist of two morphemes (with a derivational -er suffix on the end to convert the verbs sing and bang into nouns), while finger and anger are single morphemes.

It seems that /ŋ/ occurs with morphologically complex words while /ŋg/ occurs with single morphemes. But even this is not quite right, as longer (which is long+er, i.e. two morphemes) has /ŋg/. The answer here seems to be that the -er suffix in longer is inflectional rather than derivational − long is an adjective and longer is also an adjective, so the -er suffix in this case has not changed the word class. But why the addition of a derivational suffix should leave the end of the word as /ŋ/ while an inflectional suffix should result in an added /g/ is beyond me.

As is so often the case, nothing is simple with English, and we need to get into all kinds of technical details to explain something that seems at first sight to be simple. I rather like the way Malay shows the difference between /ŋ/ and /ŋg/ in the spelling.

it's mean

In Brunei, people often say "it's mean" and "that's mean", instead of the standard "it means" and "that means".

I am not quite sure why the /s/ gets shifted from the end of the verb mean to the earlier word. I guess one contributory factor is that it's and that's are both common; but that still does not explain the reanalysis of "it means" and "that means". After all, putting the /s/ on the earlier word does not seem to make it any easier to say.

Or does it? Is the sequence /ts/ somehow easier than /ns/? Perhaps it is − I'll have to think about that.

One other issue we can consider: if the modified pronunciation becomes really common, perhaps it will become the norm. Then we can observe a change in process rather than something we might describe as an error. To become really established, we would have to find it occurring in other varieties of English. Does that happen? It would be really interesting to find out.

parnah?

In Standard Malay (Bahasa Melayu), pernah is used for the perfective (roughly equivalent to English have). But what about in Brunei Malay?

My colleagues suggest that pernah does exist in Brunei Malay; but if so, how is it pronounced? In theory, Brunei Malay only has three vowels: /i, a, u/, and my dictonary of Brunei Malay lists the word as parnah; but UBD colleagues I have asked reject parnah and claim they say pernah. If so, is the use of a central vowel an influence from Standard Malay? And if so, did the word parnah really exist in traditional Brunei Malay?

I was just looking for examples from BruDirect, where Brunei Malay seems to be used increasingly often; and I found this:

mama ku ane ada pernah memohon yayasan
"my mother has applied to yayasan (a charitable fund)"

However, it is hard to know what this tells us, as the language usage on BruDirect is so mixed, so it is hard to determine whether a particular usage is Brunei Malay or not.

subtle salmon

A topic I have discussed before is how use of English around the world, including places such as Brunei and Singapore, might be influencing changes that are occurring in English generally. For example, I have suggested that the following may one day become standard usage, and this trend might be hastened by the frequency of occurrence in New Englishes:

no shoes and slippers (see here)

fruits and veggie (see here)

last evening (see here)

These all involve changes in grammar; but pronunciation also evolves over time. One common trend is that spelling can influence the way words are pronounced. For example, when I was young, forehead was pronounced as /fɒrɪd/ (rhyming with horrid), but nowadays it is more commonly said as /fɔ:hed/, reflecting its spelling; and similarly often seems increasingly to be said with a /t/ in the middle, though for me this /t/ is silent.

In this connection, there was an interesting recent discussion about ELF Pronunciation on Language Log (here) (where 'ELF' stands for English as a Lingua Franca), suggesting that /l/ is nowadays commonly pronounced in salmon and also that /b/ occurs in subtle, particularly among non-native speakers of English. I suspect that such new ways of pronouncing these words will become the norm in English quite soon, and it will only be old-fashioned people like me that persist with a silent /l/ and /b/ respectively.

It would be interesting to find out how people in Brunei pronounce salmon and subtle. I predict that few speakers have silent /l/ or /b/ in them. And those speakers who do use spelling pronunciations for these words might feel reassured to know that they are probably at the forefront of a world-wide trend.

orang biskut

Playful language can be lots of fun. One of the best known collections of playful language is Cockney Rhyming Slang, which originated in London. For example, people there might say "I am going up the apples for a cup of rosie", which means "I am going up the stairs for a cup of tea". The origin of this is as follows: apples and pears rhymes with stairs, and then it gets shortened to apples; and Rosie Lea rhymes with tea, which gets shortened to rosie. Not surprisingly, people not familiar with this usage can be totally baffled!

Some instances even get established as (semi-)standard, and people are generally not aware of the origins. For example, we say "to blow a raspberry", and this comes from raspberry tart, which rhymes with fart; people sometimes talk about "a load of cobblers", and this originates from cobbler's awls which rhymes with balls; and in England, it is common to refer to someone disparagingly as a "right berk", and berk derives from Berkeley Hunt which rhymes with ..... I'll let you work that one out.

But it is probable that all languages have some form of playful usage. One of my UDB colleagues told me that when she was studying in London, Malaysians called Bruneians orang minyak ('oil people'), in reference to the main source of wealth in Brunei; in retaliation, Bruneians referred to Malaysians as orang tin, as tin mining was historically a highly lucrative industry in Malaya. This then got converted to orang biskut (as an abbreviated from of biscuit tin). It is fascinating to see how similar this process is to Cockney Rhyming Slang, though I suspect it is common in playful language usage throughout the world and was not influenced by the fact that they were in London at the time.

Falling Standards?

There seems to be a widespread belief in places such as Brunei, Singapore and virtually everywhere that standards in English are falling, and something urgently needs to be done to correct this disastrous trend. In fact, the same concern is found in the UK. But is there any actual evidence that standards are falling?

Have a look at the following headline, from The Guardian dated 3 August 2010 (here), discussing recent results for Sats, the standardised tests administered in British schools. First note that the main headline, which proclaims that standards are falling, seems to conflict with the sub-headline, the first part of which suggests that things are actually improving:Let us consider the claim that standards are falling a bit more. The article actually says that the proportion of children leaving primary school in England with a reading ability appropriate to their age group has slipped from 16% to 14%, but at the same time the proportion of those with a reading ability better than expected has increased from 47% to 51%. In other words, more students are failing, but also more students are excelling, and the change in the latter percentage is actually greater than the former.

This indicates a mixed picture. It suggests that there is an increasing divide between those who are doing well and those who are not. But a simplistic conclusion that standards are dropping seems a blatant misrepresentation of the facts.

Why do journalists always like to focus on bad news? And why is there such a persistent belief throughout the world that standards are falling?

Last Evening

I just read an e-mail message which included the following sentence:

Heartiest congratulations to Estate on their well-won victory at last evening’s UBD Inter-Faculty Futsal Tournament.

It would be easy to classify last evening as a mistake, as we don't say that in English. But why don't we? We can say last night and we can also refer to last Monday, last week, last month ... so why not last evening?

This seems to be one of those idiosyncratic features of English usage which are hard to explain. Furthermore, this is the sort of irregularity in the language which is likely to change over the course of time.

I predict that, in the future, the use of last evening will become perfectly standard. Furthermore, I believe that English usage in places such as Brunei will contribute to this kind of change, particularly by speeding up the process and thereby ironing out some of the irregularities.

In fact, the more I read that sentence about last evening, the more I am beginning to believe that it might in fact already be acceptable. Maybe it is my language that is out of date!

Mouse Trail

I have previously discussed calques (here), in which the parts of a word or phrase are translated item-by-item from one language into another. For example, the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2002, p.314) gives the example of the English word almighty, which apparently comes from the Latin omni+potens; and A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (Blackwell, 2003, p.61) suggests that the English phrase power politics comes from the German Machtpolitik and also that the English Superman comes from the German Übermensch.

I previously mentioned the occurrence in English in Brunei of mouse trail, which is a calque from Malay jalan tikus to refer to illegal paths through the forest, often used for smuggling goods. I just saw this headline in the Borneo Bulletin, with mouse trail in the headline.It is interesting to see that this calque occurs commonly in Brunei, and that it is used without explanation, in the expectation that local readers will know what it means.

There must be some other calques from Malay into the English written and spoken in Brunei, but I cannot think of any at the moment.

Standards of English

Today, I will be heading back to Brunei, so this is my last post from Germany. It has been a wonderful month, and I am most grateful to the University of Regensburg for inviting me here.

One of the most surprising things I have found here concerns the standard of English of the students I have met. I have just finished reading 18 reports written by undergraduates majoring in English, and the quality of their written English is, without exception, excellent. It is far better than what I would get in Singapore or Brunei, and I am pretty sure it is also better than what you might find with undergraduate reports in most universities in the UK.

This illustrates an important point: standards of English are not necessarily linked to the status of the language in the Inner, Outer or Expanding Circles. Although English is definitely a foreign language for all the students I have met here, this does not prevent them speaking and writing it extremely well (though, of course, I assume there are other students here with less proficiency in English).

And this relates to one other point that I have discussed before: you can speak a new variety of English, such as that of Singapore, well, or you can speak it badly. And nowadays there is widespread acceptance that it is fine to sound Singaporean just so long as you speak well.

I don't know if a distinct variety of German English might one day evolve and become generally accepted. Certainly there seems to be little chance of it at present, as all the people I have met here are adamant that their target is native-like ability in British or American English. Nevertheless, the point still remains: it is perfectly possible to speak excellent English as a foreign language, and a few tinges of German influence on your pronunciation do not interfere with this in any way.

Schmuck

In my previous post (here), I suggested that the shape of most (but not all) signs is iconic, but in contrast the sound of most words is arbitrary, so you would never guess what horse refers to unless you already knew.

There are, of course, some words that indicate something of their meaning from the way they are said. In particular, we have onomatopeic words such as plop and click, and also the names of some creatures such as cuckoo.

There are a few other words that seems to carry some hint of their meaning in their pronunciation. For example, I think the German word schrecklich sounds splendid as a word for expressing something bad, whereas the English equivalent terrible does not even begin to do that.

On the other hand, take the German word Schmuck, pronounced as /ʃmʊk/. If you don't know what it means, have a guess. To help you, here it is on the door of a fashionable shop in Regensburg.In fact, Schmuck means 'jewelry'. Now, to my ears that doesn't sound remotely appropriate, though maybe if you have all your life heard Schmuck referring to pretty things, maybe you would disagree.

As we can see, the sound of most words, in German as well as English, is arbitrary.

The Iconicity of Signs

We usually observe that the shape of most words is aribitrary, so if you did not know what horse referred to, you could not guess. And note that the word for this animal is massively different in a range of languages, so in French it is cheval, in Chinese it is mă, and in Malay it is kuda.

In contrast, we usually think of most signs, such as road signs, as iconic: they represent the concept pictorally (to a certain extent). For example, the sign on the right fairly obviously represents an aeroplane, and if you saw it on a road sign, you could immediately guess that it probably pointed to the location of an airport.

However, in reality, many signs are in fact arbitrary. Consider the next two. If you did not know which was which, there would be no way to figure out that the one on the left indicates something good and the one on the right shows an error. In fact, we often forget that this symbolism is arbitrary, and we get so used to seeing certain signs that we imagine there is something inherently 'good' contained in the tick sign and something 'bad' in the cross sign. In fact, there isn't. They are just arbitrary.
This arbitrariness of signs struck me when I observed the signs in an unfamiliar environment, while cruising along the Danube. Take the sign on the right. What does it indicate? No doubt it is perfectly obvious to anyone who travels up and down the river on a daily basis; but it is a complete mystery to an outsider like me.

And here's another one. I just looked up Wasser-Schutzgebiet, and it means 'water conservation'. But I am still somewhat mystified about what the symbols indicate.

Pronunciation Norms

It is fascinating for me to spend time in Germany, and thereby to appreciate the different approaches to norms for English pronunciation.

In 'outer circle' places like Singapore and Brunei, where English is used as a second language by many and also as a first language by some, there is an increasing acceptance that a localised style of pronunciation can be acceptable. Note that this is not suggesting bad pronunciation, as there are many speakers in Singapore who speak excellent English but who still sound distinctly Singaporean. Nowadays in Singapore there is a belief that you don't have to immitate people from Britain or the USA all the time, and indeed Singaporeans who try and pretend they come from England can sound a bit ridiculous.

The situation is very different in 'expanding circle' places such as Germany, where English is generally a foreign language and there are alomost no locals who speak it as their first language. Again, this is not connected with standards of pronunciation, as many Germans speak excellent English. But it is still regarded as a foreign language, and in Germany, there is a strong belief in adhering to either a British or American pronunciation norm.

Indeed, in the University of Regensburg, where I am based for the current month, students of linguistics are required to indicate whether they are aiming for a British or American accent, and then any deviation from this target is regarded as an error.

Put another way, people in Singapore and (to some extent) Brunei feel that they have some ownership of the language; they can develop their own styles of pronunciation and also create new words and ways of using words (though of course there is always the pressure to ensure international intelligibility). In contrast, in Germany there is little feeling of ownership of the language. Indeed, some of the staff in Regensburg have said they are flattered if someone mistakes them as coming from England or the USA.

It is really interesting and valuable for me to have the opportunity to appreciate these distinctions and to gain a greater understanding of the different approaches to English around the world.

accepting/excepting

On Language Log of 14 July (here), Mark Liberman discussed the typo in this advertisement, where excepting rather than accepting occurs.
It is interesting to note that this is an error that would rarely occur in Singapore or other places where reduced vowels are often avoided in the unstressed first syllable of a polysyllabic word. It would only occur in the Englishes of places such as the USA or UK, where accepting and excepting are homophones for many speakers.

Sometimes avoidance of reduced vowels can enhance intelligibility.

Neuschwanstein

If you come to South Germany, you have to go and see Neuschwanstein, the fairy-tail castle started by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1869, though construction was stopped when he died in 1886 (something that probably came as something of a relief to the people of Bavaria, as he had managed to bankrupt the state by building so many fantastic castles and palaces).Neuschwanstein literally means 'New-Swan-Stone'. It was "new" to distinguish it from the original Schwanstein castle where Ludwig spent much of his childhood, though this castle was later renamed Hohenschwangau ('High-Swan-District').The swans in these names are from a local motif, which occurs in many names in the region. Here is a family of swans on the Alpensee, the lake near the two castles.

jazz

Currently, there is a jazz festival taking place in Regensburg. Every square has a different act, and it is all free. You can just walk around and enjoy them all. It's brilliant. Here is one act performing in a public square.One noticeable things about this performance, and indeed most of them, is that whenever there are vocals, they tend to be in English. Why is this? Is it because the original songs were in English? Or is it because, if you compose a jazz or blues song, then English is the natural language to do it in?

Maybe it's a bit like opera, which is mostly in Italian (though Mozart broke this mold by composing his later operas in German, and Wagner used German throughout). English seems incongruous for operas, except for the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan and some recent work by composers such as Benjamin Britain.

Why should one language be appropriate for a musical genre and another language seem wrong? Is it something to do with the rhythm? That can't the the answer, as English and German have the same stress-based rhythm, so there should be no difference in choosing between the two languages.

Maybe it is just the level of expectation. So much of art is what you are used to, what is familiar, and if you are presented with something that goes against those expectations, it just does not seem right.

tall buildings

In Brunei, if you have lots of money and want to impress your friends and neighbours, you might build a big house; and although it might be vast, sprawling over a large area, it is unlikely to be very tall. Most houses in Brunei, however big they are, are only two storeys.

In contrast, in a more densely populated town, the way to make a statement about your wealth and importance is to build high. Look at this view of the skyline of Regensburg.Of course, the cathedral dominates, as one would expect. But many of the other towers are not part of churches; they are private houses.

Here is one of the tallest. It was built in about 1250, though it was extended to its current height in about 1300. In fact, at that time there seems to have been quite a competition to see who could build the tallest and most impressive tower.

Of course, the same is true around the world today, with developers competing to build the tallest building in Chicago, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Dubai .... Nothing has changed!

My guess is that one other reason for trying to build something high, such as the towers in Regensburg, is that in the past a busy town such as this would probably have been quite smelly; so if you could build something taller, you would get fresher air. It must have been quite a climb to get to the top, but maybe it was worth it for the quality of the air you got up there.

buying a ticket

I just wanted to buy a bus ticket. What do I do now?It's strange being in a place where I can't understand anything written on the signs. And while it is a bit frustrating, it is also refreshing to be somewhere where people always speak to me in their own language, something that seldom occurs in Brunei where almost nobody is willing to speak Malay to me.

I think if I were here for a bit longer, I could learn to speak German quite quickly. It's just a pity that one month is not really long enough to get very far. In contrast, one could live in Brunei for twenty years and still not learn more than a few words of Malay.

Roman Regensburg

Regensburg was originally a Roman settlement, and in places the original fortifications are still visible. Here they have been incorporated into a building on the edge of the cathedral complex.In many places, the Roman walls have long been buried under later constructions. In the next picture, the ancient walls were only discovered when a car park was being constructed, but as much as possible has been preserved under the car park building.It seems a bit bizarre for the ancient city wall to disappear under a car park; but actually it is rather well done as a historical monument.

The next picture shows another part of the Roman fortification. This is part of an archeological excavation. Now, why is there a McDonald's sign next to it? That seems particularly incongruous, creating the greatest negative advertising one can imagine for McDonald's.

In many ways, this seems even worse than the graffiti I mentioned in my previous posting. Sometimes commercial graffiti is even more ghastly than the spray-painting efforts of individuals.

What can we do about it? One thing we can do is to refuse EVER to go to McDonald's. But I guess they won't care too much. McDonald's never did earn any money from people who can think, as anybody who can think knows that the food there is absolute rubbish.

Graffiti

The views of Regensburg over the Danube can be quite stunning, especially when the buildings are reflected on the calm surface of the water.However, something that is rather surprising in such a beautiful city is the amount of graffiti on some of the buildings. Let's look, for example, a bit more closely at the orange building in the middle of the photo above.Now, some people might call it art, but I don't see anything artistic there. I guess it depends on what you mean by 'art'. If it refers to freedom of expression, then maybe one could classify this as artistic. But to me, art should incorporate some element of beauty, and I don't see anything beautiful there.

The big question is: why would people want to deface a building in that way? That's something I don't understand. Maybe everyone wants to be heard, and this is one way of achieving that; but I still don't see the point of it.

Picturesque Regensburg

I am now in Regensburg, which is really beautiful. It is located at the place where the Danube meets the Regen (from which it gets its name). This is a view of the city taken from a boat cruising on the Danube. You can see the cathedral spires soaring over the rooves the houses.The commentary provided on the cruise boat was recorded in excellent English. But one word caught my attention: the speaker stressed picturesque on the first syllable (rather than the third, as is more usual).

Jennifer Jenkins has suggested that English as an International Language can develop its own norms of pronunciation, and there is no need for non-native speakers always to refer to the styles of pronunciation of native speakers. To this end, she says that some things are important for international intelligibility, and some are not.

Many people might agree with this. The problem lies in which things we regard as important. Jenkins suggests that lexical stress is not important, and people can be understood perfectly well even if their English has non-standard stress-placement. I am not too sure about this, as it seems to me that non-standard stress can cause all sorts of problems. In this case, I found picturesque hard to understand with stress on the first syllable.

Street Theatre in Munich

I previously mentioned the street theatre in Cambridge (here). Here is a performance on the street in Munich.These musicians are from Mongolia, and the singing they produce is quite extraodinary: a very low-pitched buzzing sound. I have no idea how it is made.

I have seen these singers on the Discovery Channel (or somewhere like that); but to see them actually performing is quite special. And to come across it in a pedestrian precinct in the middle of Munich is rather unexpected.

Germany

I am now in Germany, where I will be for the month of July, as a Visiting Professor at the University of Regensburg. Yesterday, my wife and I visited Munich, the capital of Bavaria, the big southernmost state of Germany. Here is a picture of the splendid Rathaus (Town Hall) in Munich.It will be very interesting to compare the English that is spoken here with that found in Brunei. The students I will meet here all have excellent English (I believe), probably comparable to that found among students at UBD in Brunei; but the status of this English is a little different.

Brunei English belongs in what Braj Kachru has termed the 'Outer Circle', places which had a colonial relationship with Britain or the USA and where English has some sort of role as an official language. In Brunei, for example, English is the medium of instruction for most subjects from the fourth year of primary school onwards, and it is now being introduced as the medium of instruction for some subjects from the first year of primary school.

In contrast, English in Germany belongs in the 'Expanding Circle', places with no colonial relationship with Britain or the USA and where there is no official status for English. Nevertheless, English is widely used in Germany, as it so important in the modern world for commerce and also for access to knowledge.

In more traditional terms, we might say that in Brunei, English is a second language, while in Germany it is a foreign language. It will be fascinating to compare the status of the language in the two places.

katok / ketuk

The national dish of Brunei is nasi katok, which literally means 'knock rice'. The idea is that you knock on the door and get whatever is on offer, though now it seems to have become standardised as steamed rice with deep fried chicken. It's a basic dish that you can get in most simple restaurants.

The Standard Malay for 'knock' is ketuk, as in mengetuk pintu rumah 'knock on the door of the house' (from an article on page 3 of today's Media Permata).

So where does katok come from? First, Brunei Malay only has three vowels rather than the six vowels of Standard Malay; so the vowel in the first syllable is /a/ rather than the /ə/ of Standard Malay (which is represented by the letter 'e').

Then, for the second syllable. In Malay, /u/ in a closed final syllable tends to have a centralised realisation that we can represent as [ʊ]. For example, the vowel in the two syllables of duduk ('sit') sound quite different, and we can show the actual pronunciation of this word as [dudʊk]. So, in fact, using 'o' to represent the vowel in the second syllable of katok is not so surprising after all.

ripe

Here's an entry from my Malay dictionary suggesting that the Malay equivalent of 'ripe' (and also 'ripen') is masak:Er ... no; masak means 'cook', and the Malay for 'ripe' is matang.

This seems to be a simple error; and note that, in the illustrative sentence, mematangkan (with matang as its root) is used for 'ripen', confirming that matang is the correct equivalent for 'ripe(n)'.

There is a tendency for many people to believe that a dictionary is the ultimate authority, so if something is printed in one, it must be correct. But this example illustrates that dictionaries have errors, just like all other books. You shouldn't believe that something is necessarily true simply because it is printed.

Just one further observation about this: matang can mean 'ripe' or 'mature'; so we can say that the Malay word has a broader meaning than 'ripe'. In linguistic terms, we can say that matang is a superordinate term while the two English words 'ripe' and 'mature' are its hyponyms. If you are translating from Malay into English, you need to be careful which English word to choose.

Lexical Repetition (Chinese)

In my previous post (here), I discussed the tolerance for lexical repetition in Malay and compared it with the preference to avoid such repetition in English, particularly by means of using pronouns.

A similar observation can be made when comparing Mandarin Chinese with English. Here is an extract from an article in Issue 638 of Friday Weekly, a newspaper targeted at schoolchildren in Singapore:

大 小 不 同、 各 色 各 样 的 风 筝 令 人 眼 花 缭 乱， 一 下 子 也 无 从 选 择。 虽 然 精 贵 的 风 筝 特 别 吸 引 人， 我 还 是 替 大 家 选 了 最 便 宜、 简 单 的 纸 风 筝。 理 由 是， 你 们 毕 竟 是 初 试 者， 就 先 学 会 把 简 陋 的 风 筝 送 上 天， 才 攀 缘 上 等 的 风 筝 吧。

Even if you can't read Chinese, you can probably see that 风 筝 ('kite') occurs five times.

A literal translation is

There were so many different sizes and shapes of kite to choose between that for a moment I could not make up my mind. Although the expensive kites were attractive, I decided on the cheapest and simplest kite for everyone. As you were just beginners, it was best to practice with a simple kite before progressing to a more elaborate kite.

This is not very good English because of the repetition of kite. Something like this would be much better:

There were so many different sizes and shapes of kite to choose between that for a moment I could not make up my mind. Although the expensive ones were attractive, I decided on the cheapest and simplest for everyone. As you were just beginners, it was best to practice with a simple model before progressing to something more elaborate.

This seems to read much better in English. You may note that a variety of strategies have been adopted to avoid the repetition, including use of pronouns (ones, something), ellipsis (the cheapest and simplest) and a more general term (model).

When two of the indigenous languages in Southeast Asia, Chinese and Malay, both tolerate widespread lexical repetition and may even encourage it as a means of ensuring cohesion, it is hardly surprising if the English used in places such as Singapore and Brunei is affected.

Lexical Repetition

One important difference between languages, something that learners are rarely taught about, is the the degree to which lexical repetition is tolerated. In Malay, it is fine to repeat a word, but in English it is better to use a pronoun.

Here is an extract from a dialogue in my Malay textbook:Note the repetition of nenek ('grandma'). The translation is given as:While this is certainly accurate, it is not very good English, as it would be better to use 'her' rather than 'Grandma' in the last sentence.

This kind of lexical repetition is common in writing I get from students in Brunei. For example, one student wrote:

I have chosen to find a job in the government sector basically because jobs in the government sector are more secure.

Note the repetition of government sector. It would be better to write something like this:

I have chosen to find a job in the government sector basically because that kind of position is more secure.

On the other hand, if New Englishes in places such as Brunei really start to influence the style of International English, then maybe tolerance for lexical repetition will become more acceptable. We will see.

beared (contd)

In my previous blog (here), I discussed the Guardian on-line edition which included the headline:

Osborne warns cuts will have to be beared

Later in the day, this headline was changed. Look at the new version:I guess it wasn't just me who noticed the use of the non-standard beared.

It is interesting to note, however, that the headline writer has still baulked at using born, and has chosen to use an active structure instead, even though this makes the headline rather hard to understand. To me, it would be best as:

Osborne warns cuts will have to be born

In the past, The Guardian was notorious for its typographical errors, and Private Eye always referred to it as The Grauniad (the joke being that they couldn't even spell their own name correctly).

But whether we regard beared as the sort of error that The Guardian is famed for, or as an innovative usage that avoids the irregular verb form born, it is still indicative of the kind of regularising change taking place all the time in English.

beared

This is from the front page of the Guardian on-line news for 20 June 2010:Note the use of beared, where traditionally we would say born. If enough people use beared rather than born, then beared will become the standard past participle of bear.

This is a process of regularisation, where irregular forms slowly get replaced by regular ones. Once, dove was the past tense form of dive, but now most people say dived instead, because dived is regular.

I have previously noted that English usage in places such as Brunei and Singapore might be contributing to this process of language change through regularisation (e.g. here, here and here). But of course this process occurs in places such as the UK and USA as well, and it is even evident in respected newspapers such as The Guardian.

Street Theatre

One of the things I appreciated while in Cambridge these past two weeks was the lively street life. All along King's Parade and in the Market Place, there are musicians, jugglers, and various other artists doing their thing and trying to earn a bit of cash. Some of them are good, some are original, some are funny, and some of them are, well, less talented. But it all adds to the fun.

What is it that makes one act better than the others? Or more original? Or funnier? See this picture of someone playing his guitar from the inside of a litter bin: As you can see, lots of people thought this was hilarious, and they stopped to take photos and throw a few coins.

But why was this idea any better than the other acts? Why did passers-by find it so original? Indeed, I contributed some coins, and the guitarist seemed to be doing rather well.

I guess it's not fair to compare this sort of street theatre with the absence of anything similar in Brunei. For one thing, it would be too hot. Furthermore, I can't imagine people in Brunei finding an act like this particularly funny. If they saw someone trying to play a guitar from inside a litter bin, they would just think he was crazy.

So, what is it that makes something funny? I have no answer to that.

Grandma

One feature about Oliver's learning of language is how he clings to forms that he is convinced are right. He can learn new words quickly, so when we were playing a game of skittles, he learned missed immediately. But once he has a word for something, he is unwilling to change.

When his little sister was born four months ago, his maternal grandmother came and stayed for a while, and he calls her popo. Now we are staying, and he is convinced that his paternal grandmother is also popo. We have tried to persuade him that she is grandma; but he won't have any of it, and he keeps on calling her popo. I'm not sure he has realised that they are two different people. Do they really look alike?His Grandma is on the left, and his Popo is on the right. Maybe we need to get them both here together so he can learn to differentiate between them.

Strawberries / Mouth

This is Oliver, indicating he wants a strawberry in his mouth. The value of having videos to accompany a recording is that you can (usually) work out what he is saying. In the absence of pictures, that would be tough, particularly as strawberry is pronounced as [dʒaˈbi].I have transcribed a 90 second video, and in it he says the following words:

   strawberry [dʒaˈbi]
   mouth [maʊf]
   bee [biː]
   flower [fawə]
   race [ræʃ]
   Mummy eat [mʌmi iʔ]
   boing [bæɪŋ]
   turtle [tətu]
   car race [kɑː ræʃ]

Note the two-word utterances here. We can be sure that they are two-word utterances, not fixed phrases, because mummy, eat, car, and race all occur independently.

One puzzle is why there is an [f] at the end of mouth but not at the end of off, which is pronounced as [ɒʃ], as I mentioned in my previous blog (here). It seems hard to explain this on the basis of phoneme occurrence. Maybe we need to treat words as the basic unit of phonology, and the pronunciation of each word can be unpredictable.

Oliver's Words (contd)

I have previously discussed some of the early words spoken by my grandson, Oliver (here). I am now in the UK, so I am able to play with him every day and at the same time to collect data on his speech.

He is now at the two-word stage, with a few utterances of three or more words; and I will try to provide an analysis of what he says over the next few blogs.

Of course, it is never possible to collect everything, and inevitably, the most interesting utterances occur when you are not recording. But still, I will try and provide an analysis of the recordings I have made.

Analysis of child language raises some interesting questions. Among these are:

• What is he saying? Sometimes even his parents aren't too sure about some of the words he says.
• What is a word? Clearly, allgone is a single lexical item for him, even if the adult equivalent is two words. But what about a phrase like shoes off? This is a fixed phrase that he says quite often, so maybe it also is one item, not two.
• How much variation is there? He says off as [ɒʃ], but is it always the same?
• He has [f] at the start of flower [fawə]; so why not at the end of off? Does pronunciation depend on syllables, so initial consonants are completely different from finals?

Irony

In the last line of my previous post (here), I suggested that words always "tell the simple truth". I intended this to be ironic. In other words, I was saying exactly the reverse of what I actually believe.

The trouble with irony is that people are apt to misunderstand it. There was recently a splendid rant (here) by a chap called Greg Laden, arguing that of course it is possible to count how many words there are in a language (something I discussed previously here), and anyone who thinks the opposite is a fool. But in writing this piece, he completely destroyed his own argument by inventing lots of new words, like curmudgeonistic, pedanticmaniacal, and jibberishosity. Now, if it is so easy to invent new words like that and still be understood, how can one possibly obtain a finite figure for the number of words in a language?

Of course, Greg Laden was being ironic: he knows perfectly well that the definition of a word can be quite elusive. Unfortunately, if you read the comments below his blog, and also some of the comments in the Language Log discussion of it (here), it seems that quite a few people missed the irony and took him seriously. In the end, someone called Nick Lamb helpfully spelled this out in one of the comments in the Language Log discussion.

In reality, language is rarely straightforward, and we often have to dig under the surface to determine the real meaning of what people say and write. I just hope that not too many people misunderstood my statement that words always tell the simple truth.

The Accuracy of Pictures

Here's a picture taken from the forest trail between Tasek Lama and Markucing.It seems to show a traditional-style house nestling in the forested hills. But actually, that is not accurate.

Here's what the same building looks like from the other side. In fact, it is a huge building. It is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brunei, and we can just see the top of it from the forest trail.Pictures often deceive us. Unlike words, of course, which just tell the simple truth.

pantun

Today I looked up pantun in my Malay-English dictionary. The English definition is given as: 'pantun'. Not very helpful!

I know that pantun is some kind of Malay verse; but it would have helped if the dictionary had offered a bit of explanation.

I guess this dictionary is really meant for Malays who are learning English. Even so, I think it might have offered something more useful, as it seems to be suggesting that pantun is a word in English.

Mass Hysteria

Sometimes you can understand all the words in a text and still have no idea what is going on.

On page 1 of the Media Permata of 18 May, there was a story about mass hysteria breaking out in some junior and middle schools in Brunei. Two causes for this mass hysteria were given: semangat syiling, which was accompanied by the English translation "Spirit of the Coin"; and dirasuk makhluk halus, which literally means 'tempted by thin creatures'. This all left me quite bewildered.

I asked my colleagues to explain, and apparently semangat syiling involves some kind of ritual with menstrual blood and spinning a coin; and dirasuk makhluk halus means being possessed by evil spirits. But, to be honest, I still don't get where the mass hysteria comes from.

I guess there are some things in this country that I'll never understand.

carefully

This is part of the warning sign on the entrance to the steps to the observation tower at Tasek Lama. The translation is almost word-for-word, particularly with the use of the adverb carefully being translated directly from the Malay berhati-hati.It is rare to see such poorly written English on public signs in Brunei, as usually the standard of English on signs is pretty good. And it is surprising that so much was spent making this sign without getting the English checked first.