Re: yl112's Meep, LOL...

Tom Wier wrote:


>Quoting "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...>:
>
>> That's not at all new... Bahasa Malaysia has officially adopted the
>> method of "enriching" their vocabulary by basically transliterating
>> English words (rather than extending the meaning of existing words,
>> such as e.g. Mandarin Chinese has done, or coining new Malay-sounding
>> words). You get words like "sistem", "ekonomi" (though that is from
>> Greek), "universiti", "fizik" (physics), "konstruksi" (construction),
>> "radikal" (radical), etc.
>>
>> Not that it's a bad thing per se, but it does make the language lose
>> some of its unique flavor and sound a little too Indo-European :-P
The interesting part is that it's the most educated people who pepper their
Malay/Indonesian with English words. Perhaps we're witnessing the birth of a
pidgin originating in the upper levels of society.  Ingronesian.
 True, in some cases there simply is no native equivalent; nor is it a big
step forward to substitute e.g. Ilmu Bumi (Arabic 'science', Skt. 'earth')
for Geografi.
>
>...and on the other hand makes the Indo-European languages that
>are so essential to becoming globally successful in science,
>technology and business (English, French, German, Spanish, etc.)
>all the easier to learn. It is said that one reason (out of many)
>the Philippines got back on their feet so quickly after the
>financial crisis of 1997 was that they have a long-standing
>cultural finesse with learning language (especially those of
>former colonial powers: English and Spanish).
As I believe they like to say, "Four hundred years in the convent, fifty in
Hollywood".