British and Malaysian English Differences

British And Malaysian English Differences

This article outlines the differences between Malaysian English or more popularly Manglish, the form of street Malaysian English spoken by most Malaysians and British or the Queen's English, which for the purposes of this article is assumed to be the form of English spoken in south east England, used by the British Government and the BBC and widely understood in other parts of the United Kingdom.

It is necessary to make a distinction between Manglish and the English spoken by Malaysians speaking so-called proper English. While there are still certain peculiarities in the latter (especially in terms of intonation, accent and choice of words), proper Malaysian English is merely a normal variation in the way English is spoken and does not deviate significantly from common English. It is intelligible to most English-speaking peoples around the world.

Pure Manglish however can be likened to pidgin English, and it is usually barely understandable to most speakers of English, except Singaporeans who also speak a similar patois known as Singlish.