Ccti

Name : Wang Cheng Lik

Student Id : B140112C

Date : 2nd November 2015

Lexical Borrowing from Chinese languages into Malaysian English

1.0 Introduction

Malaysian English (ME) has come into contact with a range of diverse languages because of its “linguistically, and culturally pluralistic society” (Tan, 2009). These include dialects of Malay and numerous southern Chinese Languages (Tan, 2013). In addition, “various languages spoken by south Asian communities such as Tamil, and languages of indigenous groups of Borneo and Peninsula Malaysia” (Asmah, 1982) have also come into contact with ME. However, one of the most recognizable aspects of ME is the “excessive number of words and phrases borrowed from Chinese” (Tan, 2009). The contact between ME and Chinese has contributed significantly to the lexicon of ME (Tan, 2013). Therefore, the focus of this paper is to analyze what the different social factors are for lexical borrowing from Chinese languages into Malaysian English.

2.0 Content

2.1. The cultural constructs and the gastronomy scene in Malaysia

The first reason why a vast majority of borrowed words into ME comes from Chinese languages is due to the “need to refer to local objects and cultural constructs for there are no pre-existing words in English” (Tan, 2013). The borrowings are found in the “semantic fields of food, festivals, clothing, martial arts, traditional practices and paraphernalia (equipments or apparatus)” (Tan, 2009). For example, popiah in literal terms means ‘thin biscuit’ but is actually used to refer to steam spring rolls (Lim, 2013). Koay teow in literal terms means cake strips but actually refers to a kind of broad thick noodles (Lim, 2013). Other examples of borrowing in other semantic fields include, food are cheongsam (traditional Chinese dress), char siew (skewered roast), tau gey (bean sprout), wushu (type of martial art), kopitiam (coffee shop), samfoo (dress trousers) ang pow (red packet) (Tan, 2009). Tan (2013) argues that...