"Mummy, why the durian not salty wan?"
"No, dear. Durians are not salty, they're sweet. And the proper sentence is 'Why isn't the durian sweet?"
When we were kids, (most of) our parents tried their best to train us to speak proper English. But alas, we Malaysians will remain Malaysians. At some point of our lives, Manglish, or more appropriately, rojakro language, will some how or rather, find its way into our everyday conversations, 'contaminating' the almost-perfect English our parents have so dedicatedly taught us. As its name suggests, rojak language is a combination of all languages known to us, mainly the Malay language, the English language, and more often, various Indian and Chinese dialects. Therefore, I believe it is every single bit Malaysian.
Being born into a family whose mother tongue is English, I am one of those kids born in the late 80's who (almost) can't speak any Chinese dialect, hence being labelled a 'banana'. 'Bananas' are Chinese who can't speak any Chinese dialects, just like bananas, they are "yellow on the outside, but white inside" (similarly, an Indian who can't speak any Indian dialect is called a 'coconut'). By the time I could converse in English, I refused to speak in any other language. The only other language I spoke was Malay or Indonesian, obviously because we had an Indonesian helper at home. It's not like my parents never tried to teach me, I was just too darn stubborn! (I'm sure you other 'bananas' have your own reasons) Even until today, when my parents speak to me in Chinese dialects, whether it's Cantonese or Hokkien, I'd unconsciously reply in English. The scenarios is what Chinese would equate to a chicken trying to converse with a duck. Only difference is that my parents and I actually understand each other figuratively, whereas chickens will never understand ducks.
As my mum received her education in Singapore, she was (and still is!) very particular with my spoken English. In a way, I'm glad I was brought up that way, or I would never have found my passion for writing. I remember getting yelled at when I made grammatical errors, such as "The water is more deeper at the other end of the pool." Such statements were normally followed by a one hour lecture on the importance of using proper grammar and not reading enough books. In addition to that, I'll never forget my mum's favourite answer when my brother and I used to ask her for definition of words: "Don't be lazy, look it up the dictionary yourself. Do I look like a walking-dictionary to you?" So much so, by the time i entered primary school, I was speaking English fluently.
However, like I've said before, the usage of Manglish is CONTAGIOUS! After all, most of the kids at school were speaking it! And just like an epidemic, the usage of Manglish spread from those whose parents conversed with them in Manglish to those who spoke proper English. Soon enough, everyone in school was using Manglish particles in ALL of their sentences. Phrases like "Why you like that wan?" instead of "Why are you being that way?" and "Very pain lah!" instead of "It is very painful!"were oh-so-common. Those were the days when English lessons were more of screaming contests, often comprising of simple sentences like "THIS IS A DOG. THE DOG CAN RUN. I CAN RUN. THE DOG AND I CAN RUN." Our bookshelves were filled with the evergreen series of 'Peter and Jane'. And together with that, we picked up the 'skill' of using particles such as 'lah', 'mah', and 'meh', just to name a few.
As we grew older, we start to realize the difference between our spoken English and written English. To most of us, our everyday-spoken English is Manglish, with no grammatical boundaries what-so-ever (everything goes!) and written English must (well, we try our best!) have proper grammar and spelling. Some of us may speak broken English but write beautifully, or vice versa.
I find it quite queer how our audience or our peers affect our spoken English. For an example, during regular lectures, we might converse with our lecturers using Manglish. However, during presentations, we try our very best to switch from Manglish to proper English (sometimes resulting in students just reading from papers, transparencies and the like). Therefore, most of us often speak slower, and consequently, resulting in a less fluent speech. This is somewhat because we literally have to think before we speak, often trying to rephrase the 'Manglish' sentences in our minds into proper ones.
Besides that, Malaysians tend to speak proper English when they are among people from other countries. Some of them even try to 'adopt' the latter's accent, which often result in disastrous and hilarious conversations. Why is it that we feel so ashamed of our own accent? Why must we 'adopt' other society's accent? Even if we don't speak Manglish, it is still very possible to speak proper English with a truly Malaysian accent. For example :
"Why are you so sad lah?" can be easily transformed into a perfectly proper sentence just by omitting the particle 'lah', and voila!
"Why are you so sad?" An English sentence with perfect grammar; fuss free, without the need to put on a fake accent or crack your brain trying to figure if you're as 'English' as a Caucasian. The fact is, we're NOT caucasians. Let's just leave the job of being proud of an uptight British accent to the English, a coalesced Australian accent to the Australians, a nasal Canadian accent to the Canadians, etcetera. After all, we don't see many English men trying to speak Manglish (unless they have a very good reason to), do we?
In conclusion, let us be proud of our own identity. There is no shame to be able to speak Manglish. Neither is there a need for us to adopt an accent which is not our. In fact, we should be proud, because to be able to speak Manglish, we must first know at least two languages to be able to mix them all up (hence the term 'rojak'). All in all, what difference does it make, how we pronounc 'either' and 'tomato'? Whether it's "ee-ther" or "eye-ther", "to-may-to" or "to-mah-to", it still has the same meaning. As the comedian Russell Peters puts it, our accents are what distinguishes us from another society. And I truly agree with him. Therefore, let us all be proud to be Malaysian, and not look down on our Manglish!
After all, we are living in Malaysia mah!
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