did you know "cik gu" is actually a contraction of "encik guru?" isn't that cool! i found this out on wednesday night in my very first conversational malay lesson. and i liked learning that terima kasih literally means "receive love." which rather reminds me of amabo te, except without the suggestion of wheedling and a lot more spontaneous gratitude. selamat, (as in happy eating or good afternoon) literally 'safe.' (so selamat datang, 'welcome,' ="safe-come". selamat pagi, which i've always used rather indiscriminately to mean good day, really shouldn't be used after noon - that's selamat petang, and after sunset, selamat malam.)

the experience of learning malay is new and unfamiliar - the vocabulary is difficult because you haven't any other european language to relate it to, and the sentence structure seems suspiciously - almost unnaturally - uncomplicated. you constantly feel doubt about your own sentences - i must be doing something wrong. no inflections? really? hey, i can make a long sentence just by stringing on infinitive after infinitive. but that's just like in chinese! and yet random words on the page constantly trigger off buried knowledge - and you realise there's so much you already know without knowing you did: phrases filtered down through years of morning assembly commands, train announcements, (berhati-hati ruang di platform!) public signs, television subtitles, cinema trailers (akan datang), street names, (pasir, jalan, bukit, ris, merah.) foods, (ikan, ayam, susu,) and then there are the words and structures that you already knew from singlish (suda makan), or from pasar hokkien (suka, pasar, sayang. also tetapi, 'but' = singaporean hokkien tapi 'but') and general knowledge about the language. (adjectives follow noun, doubling the noun for plurals.) and each time an old familiar phrase like cik gu unfolds itself into encik guru you find quick pleasure in recognition.