Indie-pop Manglish
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Over the weekend, one of the guests on the NPR show "Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen" was the Malaysian singer-songwriter Zee Avi, who has managed to convert YouTube buzz into an indie recording contract and a well-received debut album. Most of her lyrics are in English, but one of her songs, which she performed on the show, code-mixes Malay and English. As she explains, the song "Kantoi" (meaning "Busted") is in "a hybrid of Malay and English called Manglish." I talked about Manglish a few years ago in the post, "Malaysia cracks down on 'salad language,'" where I discussed measures taken by the Malaysian government to ban Malay-English mixtures. I wonder how government officials feel now that Manglish is getting international exposure, thanks to a diminutive, ukulele-strumming songstress.
Here is Zee Avi's "Studio 360" performance of "Kantoi":
And here are the lyrics, with an English gloss (courtesy of a tribute video on YouTube). I've italicized the Malay items in the original. Zee Avi's code-mixing includes such typical Manglish features as the Malay particle lah attaching to an English phrase ("No wonder lah"), and also includes the interesting reduplication "last last," evidently a calque of Malay akhir-akhir ('in the end, finally').
| Original Manglish: | English gloss: |
| Semalam I call you, you tak answer | Last night, I called but you didn't answer |
| You kata you keluar pergi dinner | You said you went out for dinner |
| You kata you keluar dengan kawan you | You said you went out with your friends |
| But when I called Tommy he said it wasn't true. | But when I called Tommy he said it wasn't true. |
| So I drove my car, pergi Damansara | So I drove my car to Damansara |
| Tommy kata maybe you tengok bola | Tommy said maybe you're watching football |
| Tapi bila I sampai, you, you tak ada | But when I arrived, you weren't there |
| Lagi la I jadi gila. | The crazier I became. |
| So I call and call sampai you answer | So I called and called until you answered |
| You kata, "Sorry sayang tadi tak dengar" | You said, "Sorry darling, I didn't hear you" |
| "My phone was on silent, I was at the gym" | "My phone was on silent, I was at the gym" |
| Tapi latar belakang suara perempuan lain. | But in the background was another woman's voice. |
| Sudah lah sayang, I don't believe you | Enough darling, I don't believe you |
| I've always known that your words were never true | I've always known that your words were never true |
| Why am I with you, I pun tak tahu | Why am I with you, I really don't know |
| No wonder lah my friends pun tak suka you. | No wonder my friends don't even like you. |
| So I guess that's the end of our story | So I guess that's the end of our story |
| Akhir kata she accepted his apology | Last word, she accepted his apology |
| Tapi last last kita dapat tahu she was cheating too | But in the end we found out, she was cheating too |
| With her ex-boyfriend's best friend, Tommy. | With her ex-boyfriend's best friend, Tommy. |
Christopher Sundita said,
January 25, 2010 @ 3:00 am
Interesting to see that while it's looked down upon in Malaysia while in the Philippines, even the president uses Taglish extensively.
Here's a video from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's State of the Union Speech this past summer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I46jSqPExbc
Examples at 4:30, 5:50, 8:04…
–Chris
Lou Hevly said,
January 25, 2010 @ 11:00 am
I'm an American song writer living in Catalonia. Years ago I wrote a song in English in which certain Catalan idioms were literally translated, basically because the meaning and the scanning worked out better that way. For example "She knew just where I wanted to go to stop" is the literal translation of "Sabia on volia anar a parar" (She knew what I was driving at).
Not exactly the same thing, but still something I thought at the time was unique. You can hear it at http://visca.com/music/louhevly/lyrics/3marias.html
Faber said,
January 25, 2010 @ 8:55 pm
It's interesting that a lot of her lines are in Malay with the English pronouns I and you used according to Malay syntactical rules (eg. "kawan you" for "your friends"). Are English pronouns considered more appropriate than Malay ones for BF-GF exchanges?
Benjamin Zimmer said,
January 25, 2010 @ 11:01 pm
@Faber: The use of I and you in Malay has been discussed in great detail by Jordan MacVay on his Macvaysia blog. Check out his 2004 post, "I OK, You OK: English Pronouns in Malay."
Faber said,
January 26, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
Thanks!