Page:Baba Malay. An Introduction to the Language of the Straits-born Chinese.pdf/11

BABA MALAY. 59 yarg are never used by Malays; instead of ini macham purya orarg fikir, a Malay would say pada fikiran orarg yary dmkian; and instead of apa yary baryak salah, a Malay would say ksalahan yarg bsar; a Malay would probably say the whole sentence somewhat as follows:—Pada fikiran orarg yarg dmkian, ksalahan yarg bsar tiada patut di-perbuat, dan ksalahan yary sdikit boleh di-perbuat. The last clause “ Apa punya bodoh satu fikiran ini?” is even more utterly foreign to Malay idiom. It will be noticed that in the above sentence as reconstructed in the Malay idiom, the passive form di-perbuat is used; the Malays of course make a great deal of use of this construction both in writing and in conversation, but the Babas hardly ever use it at all. Another peculiar of the Babas is that they almost always make the adjectival pronouns itw and ini, that and this, precede the noun which they qualify instead of following it, as it should be according to Malay idiom. Again the Babas use the verb “ to be” quite differently from the Malay idiom; take such sentences as, “ Ini ada btul salah; ” “ini macham pura orary ada bodoh”’—no Malay would ever use ada in such a connec- tion at all. They also follow the English idiom of placing the verb “to be” at the end of a sentence, thus, “ brapa chantek dia- orary ada,” “how beautiful they are.” Another Chinese idiom is the use of dataiy for “ here” or “ hither,” as the Chinese use /di, as,“ knapa t'ada bawa dia datarg?” and “ Kalau lu jalan datayy.” Pernah is used in the sense “at some time,” as opposed to ta’per- nah, “never,” in the same way that the Hok-kiens used bat and m-bat, as, “ kuda yar sudah pernah targgor seksa,” “a horse which has suffered at some time;” “kuda yary sudah pernah ja- toh,” “a horse which at some time has fallen;” these quotations are from the translation of “ Black Beauty” by Mr. Goh Hood Keng, who speaks very little Chinese. The following may also be given as examples of phrases which are distinetly Chinese—* Di- prarakan sampai mnjadi orary,” “taken care of until he grew up” = Chinese chid"-ldry ; tergok rergan, instead of the Malay pan- darg mudah = khoa"-khin; “ orang yarg kna dia pukol,” “the man who was beaten by him” = hd i phah.

The following list of words, though not by any means com- plete, will be useful for reference.

WORDS PECULIAR 'TO THE BABAS.

Being principally corruptions of Malay and Chinese words.

R. A. Soc., No. 65, 1913.