Thursday, September 16, 2010

Language is fun

Going back to two or three years ago, my good friend told me a story that happened in his class, martial art class. There was this girl, a foreigner from middle east country who got so interested in learning Malay's martial art, the silat. The only problem was;

Language.

She understood just a little of Malay language, the most basic one probably like makan, minum, satu, dua, tiga, empat and nasi goreng Pak Ali (the name of a restaurant in our college).

My friend told me, during the class, he heard the foreigner's partner, a Malay friend translated for her the meaning of one of the movement in silat, 'Buah Ali Patah Atas'. She was like directly translating it. So the meaning would be 'Ali Fruit Break Up'. Kinda weird but what can she do as the foreigner doesn't understand the name of that particular martial art movement.

So the question is, should an English gentlemen to call me, will he says 'Light Amen' as my name is 'Nur Amin'? Or double translation with Arabic language 'Light Truth'? Or should I beautify it with grammar technical aspect, 'The light of truth'. LOL

Or should I suggest that particular foreigner to firmly use 'Buah Ali Patah Atas' as it is the original name of that particular silat movement. Even so she doesn't understand the name, she should know that every time she uses that movement, it has to be called as 'Buah Ali Patah Atas' and should not to be translated into any other language.

Another aspect is, let say that I'm studying in Politeknik Ungku Omar, when it comes to international people, should I change it to 'Ungku Omar Polytechnic'? Or should the international people still recognizing it as Politeknik Ungku Omar even so they are Brazilian, Arabian, Canadian, Japanese and any other races that we have in this world?

Maybe it would be fun if we reverse the situation.

An MIT's student come to Malaysia. In their place, the institution is called Massachusetts Institute of Technology but when in Malaysia they have to immediately change it to 'Institut Teknologi Massachusetts' as the local people won't understand it. Got it?

My name is Nur Amin and I'm not the light of truth! LMAO

This article is just an opinion. Any feedbacks are much encouraged.



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2 comments:

eVy-D-YaNa said...

aduyai..sah2 that foreigner girl tu bdk klas evy! ;P

ni la jadinya kalo smua nk direct translate..hehe~

syafeenamk said...

hhahahaha. aku faham permasalahan ni. direct translation.