Multilingual Memories: Speaking rojak

Selamat Hari Raya!

This year, my family celebrated the first day by visiting my grandmother’s house. I’ve been looking forward to some of my aunt’s best dishes – beef rendang, lontong, and ayam masak merah (chicken cooked in a fragrant, tomato-chilli gravy), and of course, kuih layang-layang, which was made from rolled filo pastry and then sprinkled with salt. As I was munching away and taking in the conversations around me, I couldn’t help but notice different patterns of translanguaging going on in the room across the four generations.

Translanguaging happens when we use two or more languages within or between sentences. Similar to code-switching, or switching between languages, it’s more like using my different languages at the same time. While this does happen quite frequently at home and in my social circles, what was going on under my grandmother’s roof on Hari Raya was a lot more interesting.

My nenek, or grandmother, moved to Singapore when she was a child, and could only understand Malay and very minimal English. Because of this, we usually talk to her in mostly Malay. With my makcik (aunt) and pakcik (uncle), I use both English and Malay, with more Malay than English, but among themselves, they use mostly Malay. With my cousins, I used more English than Malay. My cousins also use a mix of English and Malay, but mostly English, with their children. How is it possible for us to know how much of which language to use with each other? Why do we speak differently with each other? Is it socially driven? Is it a conscious process? Is it automatic?

These thoughts made me think about how two different languages are represented in our brain. Although what went on at my grandmother’s place is somewhat different from my own home’s linguistic background where there are only two generations, I’m keen to know how much mixing goes on around the young ones who are just starting to learn language. How much of each language can they pick up when we translanguage? Can they tell the difference between English and Malay? Can they distinguish between the two when used in a single sentence? What about translanguaging within a word such as interestingnya (where ‘nya’ is a Malay suffix that means ‘very’)? This tweet by a parent about the conversation with her daughter made me giggle (Upin Ipin is a popular Malay children’s cartoon):

This post was written by our Research Assistant, Shaza. Wishing everyone a joyful Hari Raya Aidilfitri~

At BLIP Lab, we’re keen on investigating these language mixes at home! If you have a child between the ages of 0-4 years old, we’d love to invite you on our journey to understand more about this. Click here to know more about the Baby Talk-a-thon: https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/blip/baby/talkathon/

We’re also on Instagram @bliplabntu – follow us there!