Malaysia
The predominant Chinese “dialect” in Malaysia is Hokkien, although
there are two major branches: north Peninsula type (where “rice 飯”
is pronounced /p~ui/) and the rest of the country (where “rice 飯”
is pronounced /png/).
Cantonese is predominant in the central area of Peninsula Malaysia and is
widely understood elsewhere by the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia.
Dominant Cantonese areas are: Klang Valley centred on the capital
city Kuala
Lumpur (but excluding Klang town area and coastal Selangor), Kinta Valley
(centred on Ipoh) and Negeri Sembilan, much of Pahang, northeast Johor (Mersing
area) and, I am told, the Sandakan area in Sabah on Borneo Island.
Hakka is strong in Klang Valley and Kinta Valley and is dominant in Sabah.
Other major “dialects” are Teochew (Chiuchau), Hokchiu (Fuzhou),
Hainanese and Kwongsai.
Increasingly the younger generation of the ethnic Chinese, especially in
the smaller urban areas, speak Mandarin to the exclusion of the southern
Chinese “dialects” because of the influence of official policy in
Singapore and China on the local community leaders in Malaysia.
Many children in Malaysia attend “Chinese Medium” schools where the
medium of instruction is Mandarin rather than the usual Malay. Since
the early 80s, simplified characters and Pinyin have been used in schools
to teach Chinese, but you will find that most people in their 30s or older
are still more comfortable with traditional characters. Most Chinese
language newspapers converted from traditional to simplified characters
over the past 20 years.
The major newspapers in Peninsula Malaysia are:
• Sin Chew Jit Poh (星洲日報) – Traditional
Character Headlines /
Simplified Characters for the body text.
• Guang Ming Daily News (光明日報) –
Traditional Character
Headlines / Simplified Characters for the body text.
• China Press (中國報) – Traditional Characters
• Nanyang Siang Pau (南洋商報) – Simplified
Characters
• Kwong Wah Yit Poh (光華日報) – Simplified
Characters
In the broadcast media we have state as well as private networks.
For radio, the state network Radio 5 (Radio Malaysia) is in Mandarin but
there are daily news bulletins in Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka.
There
are three private Chinese FM networks – they are generally bilingual in
Cantonese and Mandarin.
For television, we have six free-to-air channels, two of which are
state-controlled (RTM). The six channels have varying degrees of
Chinese broadcasting, from very little to quite a lot. Chinese news
bulletins are invariably in Mandarin, but programming is heavily dominated
by Cantonese soap operas and movies (some which are dubbed in Cantonese
from the original Mandarin).
There is considerable resentment amongst the non-Cantonese against the
dominance of Cantonese in the broadcast media and many welcomed the
announcement last year by a politician in the Information Ministry that
Cantonese would be phased out in favour of Mandarin on RTM. However
the only changes I have seen so far are some old Cantonese movies
being dubbed in Mandarin.
The Cantonese vocabulary in Malaysia has some differences from that spoken
in the PRD region. Here are some differences:
soum1 ma1 – all (Malay “semua”)
baan3 naai1 – clever (Malay “pandai”)
kau1 – dollar / Malaysian Ringgit; this is nowadays used interchangeably
with 文 (man1)
leoi1 – money / cent
gung1 ziu1 弓蕉 – banana (Hokkien or Hakka)
tong4 堂 – collective noun for cars; e.g.
我見到兩堂車泊喺度。
cin1 caai1 – anything goes, 随便 (Hokkien)
bak1 sak1 – (wet) market (Malay “pasar” from Arab “bazaar”)
lok6 seoi2 落水 – rain, 落雨
Some of the above are waning in usage as the media continue to bombard the
masses with HK Cantonese.
Cantonese phrases that have entered mainstream Malaysian speech, even in
English and Malay are 搞掂, 拍拖 and仆街;
the latter spelt as “pokai” which generally means “broke” or
“out of money”!
Malaysian Cantonese is of course spoken with a different accent from Hong
Kong. I pronounce Tone 4 and Tone 6 the same. Same goes for
Tone 3 and Tone 5. I remember when I was a small kid, I used to
pronounce 飛機 as
/fei1 gi1/ and自己 as /zi6 gi1/. I must have been
influenced by mainstream media because now I pronounce 機 and
己 as /gei1/ in the above context. The fact that I was removed
from Cantonese-speaking KL to Hokkien-speaking Penang in childhood also
limited my exposure to Malaysian-style Cantonese.
There are many people in Malaysia who will speak Cantonese with a
non-native accent. One of the best markers (to my ears) of a
non-native speaker is in the vowels, especially the inability to
differentiate long and short vowels, so that words like 雞 and
街 are pronounced the same.
(this entry was kindly provided by tym in June 2004)
Additional comment by JB:
"I can confirm that Cantonese is spoken (not the main language but it is spoken)
in Sabah - East Malaysia. For example, in the Kota Kinabalu area.
We hired taxis, and ordered in a restaurant using Cantonese, lots of staff speak it.
...and, prices are always cheaper when you bargain in Cantonese than
English!
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