3/2/2009 Course Notes

Here are the notes, and questions we did on our last class. :)

Standard Language

Standard language(also standard dialect)-a particular variety of a language that is recognised as ‘correct’.
-it is the language used by the media,schools,courts,for official functions,etc.-it encompasses grammar,vocabulary,spelling,and to some extent pronunciation

Standard English

•There are 2 major varieties of ‘Standard English’,i.e.British English and American English which has the largest number of native speakers.

Dialect

•Different groups of people speak the ‘same’ language differently.For eg.when New Yorkers,Malaysians,the Blacks,the Hispanics, etc.speak English,there are systematic differences in the way each group speaks.Yet,each group is mutually intelligible to the other.
•The Danish,the Norwegian and the Swedish can converse with one another and are mutually intelligible.They are considered languages because they are spoken in different countries.
•Similiarly,Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible ‘languages’.They are considered languages because they are spoken in different countries.
•The various languages spoken in China,such as Mandarin and Cantonese,although mutually unintelligible have been referred to as dialects of Chinese because they are spoken within the same country and have a common writing system.

The Malay Language

•An Austronesian language with some 33 million speakers in the Malay Peninsula,Sumatra,Borneo,and parts of Indonesia.
•The history of the Malay language can be divided into 4 periods-
•A)Old Malay(682-1500C.E.)
•B)Early Modern Malay(1500-1850)
•C)The Late Modern Malay(1850-1957)
•D)Contemporary Malay(after 1957)

Borrowed vocabulary

•The Malay language has many words borrowed from Arabic(religious terms),Hindustani,Sanskrit,Tamil,Portuguese,Dutch,Chinese and lately English(scientific and technological terms)
•There are only very few true Malay words.eg.Batu(rock)is an original Malay word.Do you know of others?

Pidgins

-a variety of a language(eg.English)developed for some practical purpose,such as trading,among people who had a lot of contact,but who did not know each other’s languages.
-the origin of the term ‘Pidgin’ is from the Chinese Pidgin version of the English word ‘business’.

English Pidgins

Characteristics of English Pidgins:
•-absence of any complex grammatical morphology.
•-limited vocabulary
•-suffixes such as ‘s’(plural)and ‘s’(possessives)
•Eg.tu buk(two books),di gyal pleis(the girl’s place)
•-buk bilong yu –is said instead of ‘your book’
•-haisimap (hoist him up) or lift
•-yumi-(you plus me)
•-hed(head)
•-i-arrait(he alright)-baimbai(by and by)

Creoles

•-When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade language and becomes the first language of a social community.
•Eg.Tok Pisin can be described as ‘Creole”.
•-spoken by a large number of people in Hawaii.
•-a Creole develops as the first language of the children of Pidgin speakers.

Discuss the following in groups and present your findings to the rest of the class.(Quiz-20m)

•1.Explain with examples the following:a)Standard language b)dialect c)creole d)pidgin
•2)Explain the origin of the Malay language.Focus on the different eras in the history of the Malay language.
•3.What are the different Malay,Chinese,Indian languages/dialects in Malaysia?Explain the difference between language and dialect?
•4)Explain the differences between the Malay language and Bahasa Indonesia.
•5)Why does a language borrow words from other languages?Does the Malay language have borrowed words?List the words and their origin.