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Monday, April 25, 2005
Baluku or Buah Duku
In my post about Isaac's baluku, reader Journeyman said the following:
you meant buah duku? please for once, could you singaporean chinese - or chinese singaporeans - get your malay words right? like "otak otak" shortened to and misspelt as ota*H*. good grief.
Actually, no. I meant baluku. I know the root word is from the fruit "buah duku" but a swollen bruise is called "baluku" by most Singlish speakers, especially Chinese Singaporeans.
In the same way, we call bread "loti", even though the root word is "roti". The same goes for "otah".
From an NUS EL2111 course (Historical Variation in English) webpage on The non-Anglo Englishes (NEs):
The ‘internal system’ within a speaker is partly the result of the external input available to that speaker. This exposure might therefore lead to a ‘Mandarin’ system, a ‘Standard English’ system and a ‘Singlish’ system within that speaker. These systems can potentially influence each other, obviously; but when this speaker refers to, say, someone’s baluku (‘a bruise’), he/she does it because he/she has been exposed to other CSE speakers who use the lexical item – not because he/she knows Malay (baluku comes from Malay buah duku – the fruit).
Language is a living thing. It evolves with usage. Finicky Feline may disagree with me though (to which I say "pffft", heheh).
Read this little post by Malaysia's funniest satirist, TV Smith.
Although TV Smith wrote the above for Malaysia, it applies to us in Singapore too. And as TV Smith says, "this linguistic mixture is a living testimony of our nation's colourful and diverse cultural heritage."
Gosh, I so love discussions on Singlish, the glorious Singapore tongue. "Pffft" to the puritans at the Speak Good English campaign too.
Monday, April 25, 2005 at 02:48 PM in Musings | Permalink
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» Baluku your head ah! from My Very Own Glob {Curiosa Felicitas}
I have little to say about this issue, as with all other issues, except that I have not sullied anyone's mother tongue, and there is no such thing as a mother tongue. We don't play mother one.
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Tracked on Apr 26, 2005 12:04:57 AM
» To all you linguistic purists: from NSF - Pkchukiss' Conscript Life
Which brings me to another point: Language is a living entity, and continues to evolve throughout its usage. Therefore, there is no truly a pure version of any language, especially with the influences of other languages tugging at it, inserting or mu... [Read More]
Tracked on May 1, 2005 9:03:24 PM
Comments
Ah yes... took that module a year ago. Change in language is really inevitable.
Posted by: Hai~Ren | Apr 25, 2005 3:07:32 PM
Like peng-kang instead of pangang? indeed, singlish speakers - or more specifically chinese singaporeans - can hide behind the "i'm proud to speak singlish" nonsense as an excuse to corrupt my mother tongue.
but if these same people were to come across jokes on chinese speakers corrupting the english language - famously their "l" and "r" confusion, oh and that joke Sum Ting Wong as opposed to something wrong - react like a bunch of monyet kerna belachan and start yelling about "that one so Lacist one!"??
btw, buah duku is also used to describe swollen bruises. not just the fruit.
Posted by: journeyman | Apr 25, 2005 3:41:38 PM
in other news, I would like to report that Buah Duku is also an endearing term used by Primary School boys to refer to their testicles. They also use it to refer to smashing punches to the top of the head which inflict bruises.
At least in Malaysia, they do.
Posted by: cowboy caleb | Apr 25, 2005 3:58:23 PM
Wah Lao si mi tai chi? Singlish very good one ok? Look at uncle PCK, got mewsical somemore eh! don pway pway ok? Garhermen always say we need to jiang Ying Yu, but we all understand each other still mah! Singlish is unickely singaporean mah!
Posted by: Makan Guru | Apr 25, 2005 4:03:49 PM
hey journeyman. you seem pretty offended abt the way sinagporean chinese speak singlish. are u a singaporean?
i wld like to say that most of the words used in singlish are actually a mix of the many local languages and dialects. nobody is trying to corrupt ur lang. pls understand that. cos mr brown here is using a singlish word. not a malay word. thankyou!
Posted by: app1eg | Apr 25, 2005 4:11:09 PM
speaking of roti, i feel like eating roti john now. mmmmm...
Posted by: catatonic | Apr 25, 2005 4:28:04 PM
my mom in law calls them Loti Planta (roti prata). Being my MIL, i have never tried correcting her. :P
Posted by: Mystery Tan Line | Apr 25, 2005 4:45:10 PM
Haha I am taking that module now. Exam comes up in a week! :P Continue your musings on Singlish, Mr Brown!
Posted by: Serene | Apr 25, 2005 4:50:32 PM
Singlish is cool, Singlish is good, Singlish gives us an identity...!!! i have korean, jap, hk, china, india colleagues trying to pick up singlish from us all the time. As if Wassup is so grammatically correct...Singlish RoXors
Posted by: Shortphat K | Apr 25, 2005 4:52:59 PM
Come on, baluku is such an endearing term here. And app1eg is so right, mr brown is not even using a Malay term, so don't jump in rage. I bet many people don't even have the faintest idea it originated from buah duku.
Many of these Singish or mispronouced terms can be traced back long long time ago to our short tongue migrants ancestors who couldn't speak English or Malay or even each other's dialects. Language evolves all the time and absords terms from other cultures, hence creating a huge amount of borrowed words. Even the Indonesians and Malaysians can't see eye to eye to each others Bahasa Indonesia/Melayu. Does it mean the faster evolving Bahasa Indonesia is a corruption to Malay Language too?
Posted by: hlh | Apr 25, 2005 5:05:52 PM
I didn't know that Singlish also got proper spelling one (I know Bahasa Melayu got). I mean, other than the Lexicon of Singlish (not endorsed by Oxford), never heard of any other "authorised dictionary" for us to check spelling one leh...
Oops better diam-diam and GOSTAN my position, SKARLI the Malay scholar comes after me with a knife or gives me a few BALUKU...
Posted by: mrs budak | Apr 25, 2005 5:16:35 PM
My grandma went back to China to visit her relatives. When asked what it was she ate for breakfast, she said, "lo-ti lor!"
Course, no one there understood her at all. It was only upon reverting to "mee poh" (we're teochew) that the people understood.
Some people say as long as we understand one another, then the language has served its purpose, after all, isn't it about communicating one's thoughts?
Mr Brown is lucky in the sense that he can revert to proper english at the appropriate time, for example, in front of bosses, or when speaking to foreigners. I am all for singlish as our national identity, but i'm afraid that if our kids grow up only knowing how to speak that, then they would be in trouble.
Posted by: doppy | Apr 25, 2005 5:23:04 PM
apple1eg - would you get offended if you overhear a group of western expats imitate, exaggeratingly, the way you speak Singlish? or would you laugh along and point at them, "so cute one hor?".
being singaporean doesn't necessarily mean i should condone or speak singlish, or wear it as a badge of pride. thank goodness i'm not educated by young half-baked teachers "graduated" from goodness-knows-where of today.
btw, let me repeat this: if foreigners make fun of the way you chinese speak engRish, wouldn't you all chinese singaporeans call them racists?
Posted by: journeyman | Apr 25, 2005 5:40:45 PM
who's making fun of who? i'm getting confused by journeryman's argument.
i am proud of singlish btw, becuz it's one of the best representations of sg. singlish evolved so that singaporeans with different mother tongues can communicate effectively with each other. nobody's making fun of anybody's mother tongue. the way i see it, if there is any teasing whatsoever, it's all good-natured.
Posted by: wen | Apr 25, 2005 5:53:18 PM
Pffft.
Scarly Malaysians and Indons read your blog and if you're not malooooo that you ganna laugh at, then it's not a problem dude.
Have fun eating your loti plata, baluku and lambutans.
;)
Posted by: FF | Apr 25, 2005 6:11:00 PM
The Malay language as it is right now exists because it is 'corruptible', for want of a better word. Take a stab at a Bahasa dictionary and you will find more than half of the words in there come from some other language. It is a colourful language of borrowings, and you'll have fun with the etymology, Journeyman. Just look closer.
Posted by: Mr Miyagi | Apr 25, 2005 6:16:46 PM
There is no language that can be said to evolve and develop in total seclusion and isolation from other languages. English/ Singlish/ Bahasa Malaysia all have their loan-words and terms borrowed from other tongues. How do you think the French would feel about us speaking a provincial dialect of French (which was what Norman French was at the time the Normans ruled England) English is a bastard language anyway; its roots stem from Old English or Anglo-Saxon, along with Latin and French (Norman dialect). It's only a natural process to have words borrowed and somehow ending up mispronounced.
Posted by: Hai~Ren | Apr 25, 2005 6:44:31 PM
god. my el2111 exam's coming 4th may.
Posted by: rats* | Apr 25, 2005 7:35:27 PM
Its baluku to me coz my grandma teach me one. Came from this rhyme :-
Baluku, Kok kah na
Chap zi huay, zo ah ma.
Can't remeber the rest of the lines liow, but vaguely remember it having "bua loh sai tang" in one of the iines. :p
Posted by: Ruok | Apr 25, 2005 7:53:01 PM
journeyman: I would think "condoning" is a tat too harsh!!! My jolly ol' chap, every country has their very own colloqualism and manner in which they speak english. The americans have their own colloqual english, the french , and of course the good ol' brits i dare say my dear fellow. So what is just so wrong with Singlish? I do believe Singlish can be communicated in a grammatically correct fashion eh. Don't you think? Jolly Good. now imagine if the whole world speaks just like that, wah lau damn sian loh!!! I luv my Singrish!!!
Posted by: Shortphat K | Apr 25, 2005 8:19:45 PM
Journeyman, I think I can understand why you would feel irritated with the incorrect usage of your language, but you really shouldn't because singaporeans mean no malice and words like baluku and loti are in fact part of our life. These words have been localised over a period of decades.
"btw, let me repeat this: if foreigners make fun of the way you chinese speak engRish, wouldn't you all chinese singaporeans call them racists?"
I don't think so; except for Americans and English people, who speaks perfect english? Koreans, Japanese and the Chinese all have their own brand of english. Why should Singapore be any different? Though we should strive to improve our English standards, there's no need to be ashamed of lapsing into singlish when communicating with people whom we know will understand us.
btw, have you visited www.engrish.com?
Posted by: sist | Apr 25, 2005 8:23:25 PM
As far as I can remember, we never had to write essays in Singlish. In fact, we were not allowed to. Thus "proper spelling" was never an issue.
As far as I can remember, "baluku" had always meant "big fat bruise". Never knew that it was adapted from some buah.
As far as I know, "baluku" is probably adapted from somewhere. But from where, I never bothered and it's not necessary to figure out too because I'm not taking O Level Malay exam. You understand, I understand, that's okay.
As far as I know, when I speak Singlish, I was just using a patois I grew up with, and which my friends could understand, whether they're Malay, Indian, Eurasian or Chinese. I wasn't imitating anyone when I said "baluku"; to me, it simply meant "big, fat bruise".
Orh. Remind me to get a Malay dictionary otherwise Malay language scholar will be very angry, one!
Posted by: mrs budak | Apr 25, 2005 9:54:25 PM
And the G in Genting is pronounced as 'g' not as 'dz'
Posted by: Jo | Apr 25, 2005 10:35:09 PM
Journeyman:
What do you mean,
"young half-baked teachers "graduated" from goodness-knows-where of today."?
1. What is wrong with being a young teacher?
ALL experienced teachers start off with ZERO experience.
2. Not all young teachers are half-baked.
3. If you have children, where would you send them to study for pri sch education? Good luck ah.
Want to go international sch? Donch have singlish or engrish there one leh. They also not trained from goodness-knows-where of today one leh.
Relac lah.
Posted by: X-T-cher | Apr 25, 2005 10:42:50 PM
ahhh.. I really feel like shooting this bloddy hell journeyman man! "WHat the hell is ur problem! go eat *beep* and die stupid *beep*!" But I shall take it back..
Perhaps it's due to a harsh day of preparing for the darn exams. And..why is he looking down on "fresh out of the oven" teachers? I guess he's trying to mean teachers from the NIE?
quote: "thank goodness i'm not educated by young half-baked teachers "graduated" from goodness-knows-where of today."
Well, I guess I just can't help but feel his..arrogance.. So what?? I like baluku i like singlish. I like otah! cannot meh? Go *beep* lah you.
Arghh... then again.. it might be my exhausted mind..got to let steam out somehow..
anyway.. i wun mind expats imitating singlish. They can nvr/seldom do it right. Thats perhaps one of the reasons why we are proud of it. Of course, you will have to use it in the right places lah. Normal conversation only mah..cannot meh? not writing composition right?..Now I talk like that doesnt mean tat i am an uneducated chao ah beng mah! I might be an honours grad, educated ass*beep* who like to talk lidat mah! like that more qin qie mah.. you know what is qin qie or not? Anyway.. I will "laugh along and point at them, "so cute one hor?". "
quote "btw, let me repeat this: if foreigners make fun of the way you chinese speak engRish, wouldn't you all chinese singaporeans call them racists? "
repeat this repeat this.. repeat ur head lah! No i wont.. cos our english..well at least mine.. really not as good as theirs mAHHH.. Btw i might b a racist towards you?
"thank goodness i'm not educated by young half-baked teachers "graduated" from goodness-knows-where of today."
Phew..thank goodness I dun know you. ( i think this is the problematic statement he made that triggered me. Anyway.. I am not from the NIE. Just bu shuang lah.)
paiseh huh all.. me first time post got bad record liao. storm in a teacup? soli lah ..let me release a bit. I shall still click "post". here goes..
Posted by: meesiam | Apr 25, 2005 11:01:15 PM
Hi-5 X-T-cher! =)
oops...;P
Posted by: meesiam | Apr 25, 2005 11:04:24 PM
My exam is coming soon as well, together with those en2111 students who posted ahead of me. wading through the notes for the 200th time is not fun, so here I am.
journeyman appears to be mad that Singlish borrows and subsequently adapts his (?) mother tongue, presumably malay. Well if it's any consolation, Singlish borrows from all and sundry, and not just Chinese speakers modify malay words; I've heard Malay speakers modify Hokkien/ Indian words as well. Language borrowing and modification occurs everywhere, not just in Singlish, and I don't see how anyone can stop it...
Oh, and I must say many linguists who approve of Singlish are actually not "new birds" (not that I have anything against them). And I'm sure plenty of English graduates/ undergraduates would love to hurl their dictionaries at you for questioning their qualifications.
sist, I don't agree that Americans and British folks speak perfect English... Not just because there is no "perfect English" (even Americans/ British themselves have different grammar, spellings etc) but also because American and British English are also extremely diverse. There's perhaps African-American English (many view it with pride!) and the Cockney variety for BrE for examples. Different dialects, different accents, different rules, but all AmE or BrE. And we don't "lapse" (negative connotation and I'm pedantic... just ask some people), we "switch" :)
Posted by: WJ | Apr 25, 2005 11:13:27 PM
This might be NSFW, but I have a New York license plate that has the "magic vulgar words" which Ah Beng gangsters love to shout out to their homies. Even in the U.S., Taiwanese, Malaysian, Burmese and other asians all say I spelt mine wrongly... all except Singaporeans. See it at http://www.flickr.com/photos/inju/8168685/ and explain how you'd spell it back home. :)
Posted by: Kevin Lim | Apr 26, 2005 12:46:07 AM
aiyo there are singlish examples even where you don't know. For example, "I was warded at SGH" is actually incorrect since "ward" is not a verb. But yet perfectly acceptable in SG coz we all understand it. Some singlish even the teachers don't know is Singlish. Would you rather a bunch of ah pek speaking the queen's english at the kopitiam? BTW What is English today was a vernacular variation at one point too. Same with Mandarin. It wasn't invented. It evolved and will continue to evolve. ie Language standards are arbitrary. Who do you think originally pushed that the only right way to speak English is "OUR" way of speaking English? I can bet you it's not the locals. Don't start a Singlish witch-hunt pur-lease.
Posted by: Mystery Tan Lines | Apr 26, 2005 1:08:19 AM
Alamak. Dah salah, tak nak betulkan, nak bangga lagi?
Posted by: orangcina | Apr 26, 2005 3:04:03 AM
in response to mystery's comment, langauge is an entity which when there is enough people saying the seemingly wrong thing, the seemingly wrong thing becomes the right and the norm.
e.g. I usually say, "I went to see doctor" when I mean , "I went to be seen by doctor". Heehee.. nvr realised there are so many budding young linguists here :)
P/S: I took that funny module mentioned also :P
Posted by: panda_mike81 | Apr 26, 2005 4:45:56 AM
hmm i think also if I had a fall and told my mommy that I got a buah duku (or whatever its suppose to be), she'll just think i got a fruit instead of checking me for a concussion, internal bleeding and possible hairline skull fractures (you see? all that CSI zooming into the flesh thing is edumacational too!). So, in the interest of good health, please continue to communicate in a way people understand haha.
Posted by: Mystery Tan Lines | Apr 26, 2005 8:44:37 AM
Journeyman is not wrong to "kaopei" about his feelings. It's his individual choice. Just don't exercise double standards can liao. To Journeyman: "Don't ever let us catch you use Walao (from hokkien), lah (from mandarin) or any other Singrish terms that have been 'corrupted' from our mother tongue(s). For that matter, he better be careful about offending french or other nationalities in the use of his 'Engrish'. Quite a lot of english terms are borrowed from other languages..... so you better check every word you use to make sure it is proper English before using it. Heh heh."
Come to think of it, even the Japanese borrow and corrupt tonnes of English word because it doesn't exist in their vocabulary. Are Englishmen to be offended? Eg. Herikoputa?
Posted by: tch | Apr 26, 2005 10:15:21 AM
French cafe, Italian caffe, Dutch koffie, German Kaffee and Turkish Kahveh which all in turn derive from the Arabic word qahwa.
KOPI!
Posted by: zz | Apr 26, 2005 11:04:50 AM
Me thinks journeyman is just really insecure and projecting all his pent up insecurity about his own race onto others.
So, dear journeyman, all I have to say is:-
BALUKU!!!
LOTI!!!
PENG KANG!!!
Posted by: Flannery | Apr 26, 2005 11:59:53 AM
"Tea" is actually derived from Hokkien "Teh"!
Posted by: Hai~Ren | Apr 26, 2005 12:00:24 PM
"satay", a word found in dictionary.com is also derived from Hokkien meaning "three pieces" :P
Posted by: panda_mike81 | Apr 26, 2005 12:48:07 PM
Count Dooku you mean? http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/countdooku/
Posted by: this side of paradise | Apr 26, 2005 1:05:35 PM
Hmmm this just shows how creatve we can be with language and language use =D Innovation = Survival; I guess that's why Latin is pretty a "dead" language now... Cheers to Sin-ga-por Ingrish!
Posted by: RChen | Apr 26, 2005 1:47:03 PM
BALUKU!!!
LOTI!!!
PENG KANG!!!
Heh heh heh. :o)
Posted by: Flannery | Apr 26, 2005 1:52:51 PM
Teh is a malay word.
Quote:
"Tea" is actually derived from Hokkien "Teh"!
Posted by: Hudee | Apr 26, 2005 10:07:33 PM
Ok. I am stepping in to say that this thread is getting a little off topic and dangerously close to touchy racial issues. Please refrain from taking shots at race, and go back to discussing language.
And I am deleting some of the comments here because I do not want this interesting discussion to become a racial shitfight. I have had enough of that previously.
Posted by: mb | Apr 26, 2005 11:03:40 PM
well even in Malay the term 'gostan' (go backwards) is from English for "Go Astern".
and in Indonesian there is a word called "memrambokan" which means "to totally and utterly annihilate" from the base word of *ahem* Rambo. (you can check the dictionary, I'm not lying)
Also, I have many non-Singaporean friends who try to speak Singlish/Manglish. In fact, I do find it kinda cute. Esp when they get their 'lah's all wrong. Like, "How are you going, lah"
It's really cute when the accent is all wrong too.
Even english borrows words. why not a creole - which by very definition is an amalgamation of languages- like Singlish or Manglish?
Posted by: silvermyst | Apr 27, 2005 11:03:49 AM
Why get upset when people aren't perfect about their language (deliberately or not)? For chinese people, many don't study malay, they pick up what they can. Sometimes they dont even know if its malay (eg "roti/loti", "gostan"). Does that mean they should only PURELY speak english OR chinese? No code-switching between languages allowed?
Why get upset when people laugh at or with you about a certain way you or them use language? We joke about rap, rastafarian "ay mon" etc. Be different and be proud to be yourself. Imperfections and all.
My chinese lang sucks and my malay is even worse. I never let what people think of my chinese stop me from trying or just speaking the way I like.
The day I people dictate HOW i speak in addition to WHAT I speak is not too far from the day people dictate how I should dress, eat, think etc. Yeee.
Posted by: MysteryTanLines | Apr 27, 2005 3:58:53 PM
I just heard on TV yesterday for some (pretty lame) TVC on slimming pills and the likes:
Bikini --> Bigini.
-_-"
Posted by: Andre | Apr 28, 2005 2:05:43 PM
:D
i like to eat lasi lomak and curry pok.
Posted by: neo | Apr 28, 2005 7:20:27 PM
