Malay youth language in West Malaysia

Abstract

This paper typologises the sociolect of 'young people' -in the broadest sense of the word -in West Malaysia.The focus is on speakers of colloquial Malay, a language variety which is itself poorly documented.Linguistic scholarship has thus far prioritised the standardised Malay variety promoted by language planners and, more recently, regional dialects.Sociolects and contact varieties have received relatively scant attention, especially in Malaysia.I start by situating the Malay youth language in Malaysia's language ecology.The next three sections describe, respectively, three distinctive lexico-semantic characteristics of this youth language: common processes of shortening words, semantic innovation, and the influence from languages in contact, including English and Chinese varieties.The final section addresses the ways in which young speakers of colloquial Malay write down their language informally.Throughout this paper, I will compare the Malay youth language used in West Malaysia with its much better known Indonesian equivalent.

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