In addition, the Wikipedia page claims that there are 530,000 people living in Brunei, which seems a bit excessive. A more reliable estimate of the population (here) is about 433,000 at the end of May 2018.
I guess Wikipedia is not always accurate!
Here's a paragraph from page 1 of the Media Permata of 23 May, 2018:
Najib, yang juga Anggota Parlimen Pekan, mengesahkan perkara itu selepas hadir memberi keterangan lebih lima jam di ibu pejabat SPRM di sini, hari ini. Beliau berkata proces merekod keterangan hari ini mangambil masa antara 10 pagi hingga 2:15 petang.
which migh be tranlated as:
Najib, who is also the Member of Parliament for Pekan, confirmed this issue after being present to give evidence for more than five hours at the head office of SPRM here today. He said the process of recording the evidence today lasted from 10 in the morning till 2:15 in the afternoon.
Are all journalists innumerate? You don't need a higher degree in mathematics to see that 10:00 am to 2:15 pm is not more than 5 hours. So why do they print that?
I have always claimed that blends in English tend to combine the first half of one word with the second half of another: 'smog' = smoke + fog; 'motel' = motor + hotel; 'infotainment' = information + entertainment. In contrast, those in Malay tend to combine the first half of successive words: cerpen ('short story') = cerita + pendek; tadika ('kindergarten') = taman + didik + kanak.
However, I recently came across some English blends that combine the first half of two words:
So, maybe English is not so different from Malay after all.
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 titah is that the full speech is available on Youtube (here) and also in written form from the Prime Minister's Office (here). This means I can listen to it and then check anything I don't understand from the written version.
It is also interesting to see where they deviate. At location 2 min 2 sec into the recording, HM says:
Oleh itu dalam apa pun keadaan, kita mestilah berusaha ...
(Because of this, in whatever situation, we must make an effort ...)
but the official text has:
Oleh itu dalam apa jua keadaan, kita mestilah berusaha ...
I wonder what this difference between pun and jua signifies.
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 certain extent. It is therefore interesting to note differences between Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia.
I was recently listening to the on-line edition of Berita Satu (an Indonesian Channel), and I was momentarily caught out by investasi ('investment'). This is partly lexical, as Bahasa Malaysia would use the indigenous word pelaburan; but it is also phonological, as the 'v' was actually pronounced as [f] (so I initially heard it as 'infestation').
Although words with word-final /v/ in English usually have [f] in Bahasa Malaysia (e.g. negatif, naif, ...), word-initial and word-medial 'v' from English is more often retained (e.g. visa). Compare aktif (in which word-final /v/ becomes [f]) with aktiviti (in which medial /v/ is retained). However, it seems that /v/ is always pronounced as [f] in Indonesian.
