Repetition in Malay and English

I have previously discussed lexical repetition, sometimes involving one term in English followed by the equivalent in Malay. Here is another example I heard from Dr Rais Yatim, the Malaysian Minster of Communications:

broadband atau jalur lebar (Astro Awani news, 23 April 2012)

where jalur lebar is the Malay for 'broadband'.

What about just in English? I have been going through editions of The Borneo Bulletin, and I found these:

Bruneians as culture custodians must not only play a key role to safeguard and preserve the country’s heritage but also ... (Borneo Bulletin, 24 October 2011, p. 8)

and

We are looking for investors for food processing in Brunei and this would be a good facilitator and enabler for the market. (Borneo Bulletin, 24 October 2011, p. 11.)

In the first of these, safeguard and preserve would appear to mean the same thing; and in the second, facilitator and enabler seem to be exact synonyms. My impression is that such repetition is rather common in Brunei English.

walkaton

The word walkaton ('walkathon') gets used quite often in Malay, as in this extract from page 2 of Media Permata of 23 April 2012:

Larian amal ini dibahagian kepada dua- larian 6.3 km, dan walkaton 4.2 km.

which might be translated as

This public run is divided into two: a 6.3 km run, and a 4.2 km walkathon.

It is interesting that the silent 'l' in walkaton is retained in the Malay word, but the 'th' becomes 't'. I'm not sure why this differential treatment of these letters occurs. One possibility is that the vowel in the first syllable is neither [o] nor [a] when it is pronounced in Malay, so neither 'o' nor 'a' would be suitable in spelling the word; but the consonant at the start of the final syllable is always pronounced as [t] so it is fine to spell it as 't'. One way or another, given that so many borrowed words with 'th' in the original have 't' in their Malay versions (terapi, teori, tema, ...), it is hardly surprising that local people tend to use a [t] when saying these words in English.

a(n) historical account

I recently wrote a book review in which I included the statement:

... provides an historical perspective on the promotion of English in India ...

and the editor changed 'an historical perspective' to 'a historical perspective'.

The reason for this editorial change is presumably because there is a consonant at the start of historical, so the editor feels that a rather than an should be used.

However, we should note that, in actual speech, initial /h/ is often omitted from function words such as his and her because they are generally unstressed. And the main stress in historical is on the second syllable, so the initial /h/ in the unstressed first syllable is actually usually omitted. This means that historical is in fact often spoken with an initial vowel, so it is best to use an rather than a before it.

In contrast, history has its main stress on the first syllable, so the /h/ is not omitted, and we say 'a history of Brunei'.

OK, so this is very, very picky, and I allowed the editor to change the usage if he wishes; but maybe it is of interest to think a little about the rationale for the use of an or a. Note that we say 'an hour' not *'a hour' because the initial /h/ in hour is silent. Note also that we say 'a university', not *'an university', because university actually begins with the consonant /j/.

Malay Doublets

In a previous post (here), I discussed doublets in Malay such as berhati-hati dan berwaspada ('careful and cautious'), where the two words mean essentially the same thing.

Perhaps the most common doublet of this kind is where one of the words is Malay and the other is English. For example, on page 2 of Media Permata of 14 April 2012, in quoting a member of the fire brigade who was discussing the reasons for the outbreak of a fire, we find the sentence:

Kabel sumbangan itu dipercayai terlibih bebanan atu overload.

which might be translated as

The extension cabel is believed to be too much load or overload.

In other words, terlibih beban and overload mean exactly the same thing, but one is Malay and the other is English. My assumption is that this is done because lots of people use the borrowed word overload even when speaking Malay, but the fire officer wanted to ensure that people who only speak Malay could also understand him.

This does not just happen in Brunei. On 15 April, I was listening to the news on Astro Awani (the Malaysian cable TV news channel), and I heard Dr Rais Yatim, the Malaysian Minister of Communications, mention 'facility atau kemudahan', when facility and kemudahan mean the same thing.

This raises a few questions: is the phenomenon equally common in Malaysia and Brunei? And is it more usual to put the Malay term first or second?

It is interesting that this type of doublet closely matches legal doublets found in English, such as 'aid and abet', 'goods and chattels', 'null and void', 'part and parcel' (see here), where the first word is Anglo-Saxon and the second is Latin or French; and the original rationale was to allow ordinary people in England to understand legal terminology. The only difference is that these English doublets have been in the language for centuries. Only time will tell whether the Malay doublets survive for as long.

Malay spelling

On the whole, Malay spelling is predictable: you can determine the spelling of a word from its pronunciation; and you can predict the pronunciation of a word from its spelling. But there are a few exceptions:

• the letter 'e' can be pronounced as [e] or as [ə], so [peraŋ] ('blond') and [pəraŋ] ('war') are both written as perang
• cukai ('tax') is two syllables while mulai ('begin') is three syllables, because the former is a single morpheme while the latter is mula+i
• universiti is usually pronounced with an initial [j] (because it is a borrowed word) while untuk ('for') never has an initial [j]
• borrowed words with 'g', such as alergi ('allergy') are pronounced by some people with [g] and by others with [dʒ]

Note that the last two involve words borrowed from English, and borrowings often cause irregularities in spelling. We might note that the English words carriage and marriage both end in [ɪdʒ] while massage and collage both end in [ɑ:ʒ] because they are more recent borrowings from French.

One more case of indeterminate spelling in Malay derived from borrowings from English involves words like zink ('zinc'), which is usually pronounced as [ziŋ]. In other words, you would not be able to tell from the pronunciation whether the word should be written as zing or as zink.

In fact, this gives rise to a potential minimal pair in Malay: bang ('a Muslim call to prayer') and bank ('bank') are both pronounced as [baŋ].

Texting and Malay Cupertinos

The Cupertino effect is when a typing error gets introduced by an over-enthusiastic spell-checker. The derivation is from cooperation (with no hyphen) being "corrected" to Cupertino (see here). Apparently, there are genuine examples, such as:

The Cupertino with our Italian comrades proved to be very fruitful

and

stimulating cross-border Cupertino

I wonder if there is a word for errors introduced by predictive texting. If you use predictive texting when typing SMSs, you can so easily get caught out. Just yesterday, I sent a message to my wife saying 'I'm tired', but I managed to send 'I'm three' instead! And, on another occasion, I wanted to say 'you should go for it', but I managed to send 'You should on for it' instead.

One other problem is typing Malay. In Microsoft Word, most Malay words get those familiar red squiggly lines underneath, which is just fine. But datang ('to go') gets converted to dating, which has caught me out a few times. I have to remember to remove that item from the list of corrections on each new computer I use.

More on the BELTA Conference

In my previous post, I included a picture of me giving a presentation at the BELTA conference last week here in UBD. It is hard to see me, as I am just a tiny figure at the front.

Here's another picture from the conference, showing my colleague, Noor Azam, giving the speech at the closing ceremony. It is from page A7 of The Brunei Times of 8 April.I am grateful that the picture of me is so much smaller ― I really find it distateful to have my picture in the papers.

Actually, I found the behaviour of photographers at the conference quite disturbing: they were constantly poking cameras in our faces, with incessant clicking and also lots of flashes. Why are photographers allowed to get away with behaviour like that?

At the same time, I recognise that, as an academic, I need to promote what I am working on, so maybe my objection to photographers is a bit hypocritical. But the way I see it is this: I try to encourage people to read what I write, and I see no reason to have a photograph of myself to accompany the coverage. Is that a conflict? Maybe.

BELTA Conference

Last Friday, I gave a presentation at the Brunei English Language Teachers' Association (BELTA) conference held in the Language Centre at UBD. Here's a picture of me giving the talk from page A8 of The Brunei Times of 7 April, 2012 ― that's me at the front.I was talking about use of the Internet in teaching English, and how we must be careful about the reliability of resources like Wikipedia. Not particularly profound, I admit! But maybe one or two of the websites I discussed will have been of interest to the participants.

I find it hard to get used to the idea that my rather mundane presentation was reported in one of the national newspapers. But then in a country where the installation of an ATM machine or a new set of traffic lights can be reported in the national newspapers (here and here), perhaps it is not so surprising that my presentation was also covered.

And I guess it's encouraging that methods of teaching and learning English are regarded as important enough to merit a newspaper report.

Tautologous Doublets

Currently, there is a news story in Brunei about someone who tricked lots of people into paying a $300 administration fee to get a fictitious government job. The third paragraph of the page 1 article in Media Permata of 4 April 2012 says:

Pasukan Polis Diraja Brunei juga ingin menasihatkan orang ramai supaya berhati-hati dan berwaspada jika ada tawaran-tawaran seperti ini, ...

which might be translated as:

The Royal Brunei Police Force also want to advise the public to be careful and cautious if there are offers such as this, ...

Note the use of berhati-hati and berwaspada, both of which mean 'to be careful'. Malay seems to love doublets like this, though comparable usage in English might be regarded as tautologous.

I often see examples such as the following in written assignments from my students:

Language is an important and vital tool.

I like to read newspapers that are printed and written in English.

and I advise them to avoid such redundancy.

However, we should also note that English sometimes has doublets, such as aiding and abetting and without due care and attention. The Wikipedia article on legal doublets (here) lists 36 such examples, and it states that they often involve an English word paired with a French or Latin word to ensure understanding.

Such doublets are mostly confined to the legal domain in English, and students are best advised not to use them in writing ordinary English. I tell them that redundantly tautologous repetition of unnecessary material should be avoided and eliminated.

Selirong

Last Sunday, I went on a Brunei Nature Society trip to Selirong Island in the north of Temburong, to walk through the mangrove forest there. This is what it looks like. You can just see the boardwalk on the right of the picture.I guess some people would not like to see the dense network of aerial prop roots of the mangrove trees (Rhizophora apicula) that rise out from the muddy swamp. But I found it magical.

Here is a picture showing the only species of palm tree (Nypa frutican) that can thrive there. It was fascinating to hear from our guide, Aywen Chak Wang Hoong, about the mechanisms these mangrove trees develop to enable them to survive in the salty water.It's a bit ironic that a phonetician like me, someone whose work involves listening to and analysing the sounds of speech, should appreciate the silence of the forest so much. But maybe it makes sense: that's where I really get away from work.

New ATM Machine

Here is the headline from page 2 of Media Permata of 28 March 2012: It says "New ATM machne in Temburong".

I wonder how many other countries would have the installation of a new ATM machine as the major story on page 2 of their national newspaper. But then I guess we don't have too many riots and strikes or things like that to report in Brunei.

one of

In my previous two posts, I have discussed non-standard use of the plural ‑s suffix in Brunei English. One quite common pattern is the use of a singular noun after one of. I have found five examples in the 53 five-minute interviews that constitute my data. They are:

well ... it’s one of life’s ... mystery

I’m not ... sure because one of my cousin is from my mother’s side and the other is from my father’s side ... of the family

my coach is actually one of our senior

and one of our relative pick us up from the KL airport

the Sharm El Sheikh is one of ... the tourist ... site where ... it’s a bit similar like Ha- er Hawaii

In these cases, mystery, cousin, senior, relative and site would all be plural nouns in standard English.

It seems that speakers feel that the referent is singular, so the noun should have no plural suffix. I guess this is logical in a way.

I haven't seen this reported for other New Varieties of English; but I suspect it does occur elsewhere.

stuffs etc

In my previous post, I suggested that the occurrence of an unexpected ‑s suffix on nouns in Brunei English occurs most often for logically countable things such as furnitures. In fact, in the 53 five-minute recordings of UBD undergraduates that I am analysing, there are a total of 15 such instances. They involve the following words: stuffs (three times; twice from the same speaker), families (twice), jewelries (twice from the same speaker), infrastructures, mythologies, cultures, varieties, golds, transports, therapies, vocabs.

Of course, in some of these cases, the plural nouns would be appropriate in some contexts in standard English; but the context in which they are used in these data suggests it is not standard usage.

A few examples are:

I think it’s because of the infrastructures

I don’t know much about their mythologies and all that

I have to help erm welcoming the guests and erm … helping carry stuffs around

it’s just that I don’t like jewelries in general

I’m just stay at home ... and just ... erm spent time with my families

so I was interested in doing speech therapies

lots and lots of stuffs ... I bought shoes, shirts, jeans, skirts, and other stuffs

One question: should teachers worry about these tokens? We might note that stuffs occurs in the Corpus of Contemporary American English 463 times. Some of these are as verbs ('he stuffs his hands in his pockets'), but many are not. For example:

so I don't want to go and find a hotel and all that stuffs

overwhelming centralization of all our food stuffs

I just have -- have to do stuffs after school

So maybe the plural stuffs is becoming acceptable even in America.

One way or another, plurals such as furnitures and informations seem to be very common in the Englishes spoken in such places as Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, and India, and I suspect they will one day be the norm in most World Englishes, even if teachers continue to cling to traditional usage.

Plural -s

I am currently doing some analysis of the grammar of Brunei English, based on the recordings of 53 UBD undergraduates (38 female and 15 male) being interviewed by me for 5 minutes each, a total of nearly 4.5 hours of speech.

One feature I have found (as expected) is variable usage of the plural -s suffix on nouns. Sometimes, -s is found when standard English would not have it, and at other times it is absent when it would be expected in standard English.

However, these cases are actually quite rare. In the 20 interviews I have analysed so far, there 249 cases where the -s suffix appears as expected, 13 cases where -s occurs unexpectedly, and just 8 cases where it is omitted in an environment where it would normally occur in standard usage. This means that over 90% of the usage is standard.

In fact, the non-standard instances can mostly be grouped into three categories:

• occurrance of -s on logically plural nouns, such as furnitures and informations
• omission of -s after one of, such as 'one of my brother' and 'one of the language'
• occurrence of -s on the end of in-law, such as 'my brother-in-laws' (rather than the standard 'brothers-in-law')

I will discuss each of these separately in subsequent posts.

wasting time

Every language seems to have a colourful expression to describe wasting time doing nothing in particular. In English we say you are twiddling your thumbs. In Chinese, maybe 打蚊子 (da wenzi, 'swat mosquitoes') is similar.

What about Malay? How about berpeluk tubuh ('hug the body')? Does this carry the same kind of meaning?

Here's the headline from an article on page 3 of the Media Permata of 15 March 2012:Translated, it says: 'Youths are urged not just to hug their bodies.'

My dictionary glosses berpeluk tubuh as (1) 'to fold one's arms' and (2) 'lazy'.

texting while eating

One of my colleagues was recently photographed texting while she was eating. The picture then appeared on Facebook, and she was criticised using the Malay saying:

Jangan biar rezeki menunggu.
Don't make good-fortune wait.

The idea seems to be that food is a blessing, and it is bad manners to show disrespect to it by texting while you are eating.

Maybe the nearest similar saying in English is: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Except that the English version does not refer to food.

(My thanks to my UBD colleagues Salbrina Sharbawi and Malai Ayla for giving me this example.)

the pronunciation of con- and com-

In my previous post, I discussed spelling pronunciation, including the fact that the 't' in often is sometimes pronounced even though it used to be silent. (In contrast, the 't' in listen is still always silent.)

One other environment where spelling seems to be affecting the pronunciation of English words is the vowel in the first syllable of words like Coventry and the adjective covert. Traditionally, these words both had the STRUT vowel [ʌ] in their first syllable; but now it is more usual to have [ɒ] in the first syllable of Coventry and [əʊ] in the first syllable of covert. (Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 2008, p. 192, states that 54% of British speakers still prefer the first syllable of covert to be [kʌv], but I find this surprising.)

Another similar word whose pronunciation is changing is constable. Once again, [ɒ] seems to be becoming more popular, and in this case it may be because of taboo: people don't want to pronounce the first syllable as [kʌnt]. In contrast, there does not yet seem to be any influence on the pronunciation of country. This is probably because the latter is a more common word, as it is normal for common words to maintain irregular pronunciation for longer than rare words.

In Brunei, the process of spelling pronunciation is more advanced, as is expected for new varieties of English. For example, 27 out of 53 of the Brunei speakers in my recordings of the Wolf passage have [ɒ] rather than [ʌ] in the first syllable of company. You can look at this in two ways: you can say that lots of people in Brunei have non-standard pronunciation; or you can say that Brunei is in the forefront of the linguistic evolution of English.

Spelling Pronunciation

The influence of spelling on pronunciation is widespread. For example, in often, the 't' used to be silent, but many people now pronounce the word with a [t] in it.

In Brunei, spelling pronunciation is very common, perhaps encouraged by the close link between spelling and pronunciation in Malay. In my data of 53 recordings of the Wolf passage, three speakers produce shepherd with an [f] in the middle, as they assume that the medial 'ph' is pronounced as [f].

Presumably, these speakers do not realise that the word was originally two morphemes, sheep + herd, maybe because there is only one 'e' in the first syllable of shepherd. One assumes that in a word where the two morphemes are more obvious, such as cupholder, speakers would be less likely to pronounce the 'ph' as [f].

Advertising

Just recently, someone contacted me offering to arrange for advertising on my blog. Apparently, there would be links around the side or at the bottom, with links to educational organisations or something like that. And presumably I would earn some money from it.

I rejected the offer, as I am not keen to commercialise this blog. I dislike advertising, and I also feel it might compromise what I want to write.

On the other hand, I recognise that advertising is necessary in some cases. So perhaps I am being old-fashioned in refusing to accept it. Maybe some people might even find educational advertisements interesting or helpful!

It is interesting that Google accepts advertising (and makes lots and lots of money out of it), while Wikipedia refuses to accept advertising and relies on donations instead. So which model is preferable? Personally, I don't get annoyed by the 'sponsored links' in Google and also in gmail, as I mentally block them out so I don't even notice them. In contrast, the appeals for donations in Wikipedia do annoy me.

So maybe I should not worry about advertising. Maybe it would even brighten up the image of the blog!

However, this blog is a hobby for me, not a business, so I do not need to generate money from it. And I will continue to reject advertising.

mice/mouses

The plural of mouse is, of course, mice. Well, it is if it refers to the little, furry animal. But what if it refers to the computer gadget? Now, of course, we usually only talk about a singular computer mouse, because most computers only need one. But how about a shop that sells the things? Does it sell computer mice or computer mouses?

According to Wikipedia (here), both mice and mouses are acceptable, though some technical writers prefer to avoid the issue by talking about mouse devices.

Actually, it is not uncommon for a polyseme (a word with two distinct but related meanings) to have different inflections depending on the meaning. For example, the past particle of hang is hung if it refers to putting something up on the wall but hanged if it refers to a a criminal being executed. I can't think of any examples (apart from mouse) involving plurals, but I am sure they must exist.