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.