Education
The origin of the word Alamak
09/03/09 09:53
About 20
years ago, I vaguely remembered asking my mother as
well as my Malay language teacher how this word came
about. I couldn’t really get an answer to it. And I
left it at that. But now after living here in Japan,
I can’t help but asking myself the same question
again!
I find this an interesting topic. I’m not a “historical linguist”. If you are and you can back me up with more facts about this, it would be a great help.
The expression “Oh my goodness!” is being said by many people in the world using different words in different languages.
In Japanese, it’s あらまあ！(pronounced: a-ra-ma-a)It doesn’t really have any literal meaning to it. Its just a word expressing an exclamation.
Interestingly, in Malay its “Alamak!”This is a word that can be broken up to mean “alah” which is a lazy tongue pronunciation of “Allah” and “Mak” which means mother. Some malay people believe “Alamak” can also mean “oh dear mother…!”
That Japanese word or expression might have been assimilated into the linguistic repertoire of the malay language or it’s the other way around! Many theories abound. And for the purpose of this post, these are just my own.
First theory:
Alamak originally comes from the Japanese.
I say “originally” because I asked one of the Japanese teachers to find out from him whether he knew that word is old or relatively new. He said that word may have been used for ages. Maybe since the Edo period (1603-1867).
Now, there has been no recorded history, of someone from the Malay Archipelago back in 1800’s or prior to that, who have ventured into Japan. Nor has there been any official representative from Japan to the Malayan Archipelago during that period. (Well the archipelago I’m mentioning here will exclude the philippines for the purpose of putting forth my theory.)
Diplomatic missions to China, yes there were. The great Sultans from Melaka (Malacca) have sent emissaries to China and also established cordial relationship with that country in order to seek protection from the bullying forces of the Siamese Kingdom.
**On a side note, what I write here is what I have learned in the history books so far. This was back in the days when Singapore students like myself were studying relevant historical knowledge of their country and the neighboring states. By “historical” I mean prior to the 1700’s. Now, I believe students are studying recent histories from 1819 onwards. Students now don’t even know anybody else in the history books apart from Sang Nila Utama and Sir Stamford Raffles. All other historical events are just being glossed over . Now students are only conscious of their history from like 50 years ago. Why is that? Why are they shortchanged? Is this part of a greater political motive?**
Back in 1942 to 1945 when the Japanese wrested control of Malaya from the British and occupied the territories of Malaya, they set up Japanese language schools. Japanese teachers teaching the Japanese language in Malaya back in those war-time might have cried “あらまあ！” in exasperation with their students. I guess that word could have been one of the (many?) Japanese words that are left as a legacy in this part of the Asian world.
Thus that supposedly Malay word “alamak” may not be that old after all!
But how can that be? I remember a long time ago hearing my grandfather saying “alamak!” when he forgot the keys to his scooter. Could he have heard it from the Japanese back then? Was it made popular by the people back then to ridicule those Japanese occupiers as they trudge back to their ships to sail back to Japan. Or could that word “Alamak” been used ever since Islam was first embraced by the Sultan in Melaka (Malacca)?
That brings me to the second theory:
あらまあ！ comes from the Malays
Now this is also very interesting. Two “sub-theories” from this.
First:The Japanese occupying force in Malaya back in 1942 to 1945 quite like that word “Alamak” (maybe its catchy) so they brought that word back home to Japan after the war and used it liberally among their fellow Japanese.
Second:There were indeed sea-farers like the Orang Laut from the Malayan Archipelago who have travelled all the way to Japan during the Edo period. I presume this was possible after diplomatic missions to China were made and cordial relations were established. The Orang Laut or people from the Melaka Sultanate may have ventured towards Japan.
But could this possibly happen? As far as I know, the Japanese Shogunate had a closed door policy. During the Edo period, any foreign powers who landed on Japanese shores will be attacked, killed and completely destroyed. Maybe the Shogun made it an exception, seeing that these seafarers were unlikely to be from Europe. Also, the likelihood of the Japanese to venture out of Japan during the Edo period is close to nil because of the closed door policy. No Japanese who went abroad can come back and none from within can go out.
So that leads me to another question. What do you think?
I find this an interesting topic. I’m not a “historical linguist”. If you are and you can back me up with more facts about this, it would be a great help.
The expression “Oh my goodness!” is being said by many people in the world using different words in different languages.
In Japanese, it’s あらまあ！(pronounced: a-ra-ma-a)It doesn’t really have any literal meaning to it. Its just a word expressing an exclamation.
Interestingly, in Malay its “Alamak!”This is a word that can be broken up to mean “alah” which is a lazy tongue pronunciation of “Allah” and “Mak” which means mother. Some malay people believe “Alamak” can also mean “oh dear mother…!”
That Japanese word or expression might have been assimilated into the linguistic repertoire of the malay language or it’s the other way around! Many theories abound. And for the purpose of this post, these are just my own.
First theory:
Alamak originally comes from the Japanese.
I say “originally” because I asked one of the Japanese teachers to find out from him whether he knew that word is old or relatively new. He said that word may have been used for ages. Maybe since the Edo period (1603-1867).
Now, there has been no recorded history, of someone from the Malay Archipelago back in 1800’s or prior to that, who have ventured into Japan. Nor has there been any official representative from Japan to the Malayan Archipelago during that period. (Well the archipelago I’m mentioning here will exclude the philippines for the purpose of putting forth my theory.)
Diplomatic missions to China, yes there were. The great Sultans from Melaka (Malacca) have sent emissaries to China and also established cordial relationship with that country in order to seek protection from the bullying forces of the Siamese Kingdom.
**On a side note, what I write here is what I have learned in the history books so far. This was back in the days when Singapore students like myself were studying relevant historical knowledge of their country and the neighboring states. By “historical” I mean prior to the 1700’s. Now, I believe students are studying recent histories from 1819 onwards. Students now don’t even know anybody else in the history books apart from Sang Nila Utama and Sir Stamford Raffles. All other historical events are just being glossed over . Now students are only conscious of their history from like 50 years ago. Why is that? Why are they shortchanged? Is this part of a greater political motive?**
Back in 1942 to 1945 when the Japanese wrested control of Malaya from the British and occupied the territories of Malaya, they set up Japanese language schools. Japanese teachers teaching the Japanese language in Malaya back in those war-time might have cried “あらまあ！” in exasperation with their students. I guess that word could have been one of the (many?) Japanese words that are left as a legacy in this part of the Asian world.
Thus that supposedly Malay word “alamak” may not be that old after all!
But how can that be? I remember a long time ago hearing my grandfather saying “alamak!” when he forgot the keys to his scooter. Could he have heard it from the Japanese back then? Was it made popular by the people back then to ridicule those Japanese occupiers as they trudge back to their ships to sail back to Japan. Or could that word “Alamak” been used ever since Islam was first embraced by the Sultan in Melaka (Malacca)?
That brings me to the second theory:
あらまあ！ comes from the Malays
Now this is also very interesting. Two “sub-theories” from this.
First:The Japanese occupying force in Malaya back in 1942 to 1945 quite like that word “Alamak” (maybe its catchy) so they brought that word back home to Japan after the war and used it liberally among their fellow Japanese.
Second:There were indeed sea-farers like the Orang Laut from the Malayan Archipelago who have travelled all the way to Japan during the Edo period. I presume this was possible after diplomatic missions to China were made and cordial relations were established. The Orang Laut or people from the Melaka Sultanate may have ventured towards Japan.
But could this possibly happen? As far as I know, the Japanese Shogunate had a closed door policy. During the Edo period, any foreign powers who landed on Japanese shores will be attacked, killed and completely destroyed. Maybe the Shogun made it an exception, seeing that these seafarers were unlikely to be from Europe. Also, the likelihood of the Japanese to venture out of Japan during the Edo period is close to nil because of the closed door policy. No Japanese who went abroad can come back and none from within can go out.
So that leads me to another question. What do you think?
|
Foreign language assimilated into Japanese Language
02/03/09 09:53
Its common
knowledge that Japanese use quite a lot of words
derived from the English language into their daily
lives. For example:
Frying pan = Furainggu panTaiya = Tyre
and others.
But English words are not the only ones that have been “Japanised” if I may say that.
Take for example the word for bread in Japanese is パン pronounced ”Pahn”.
Only today did I realize this word is a foreign word. Well I should have picked up the clue because it’s written in katakana and not hiragana like so: ぱん
Anything that’s written using the Katakana meant the word is foreign based.
Well I thought it was an original Japanese word because it doesn’t even sound like bread to me!
Well guess what, I remembered that the French word for bread is pain, pronounced as “pahn” (something closer to that)!
Well here’s another:
Clown = ピエロ pronounced “pi-e-ro”
Well pi-e-ro sounds like Pierrot, a french clown!
Alamak! (a supposedly malay exclamation word) = あらまあ！(This is could actually be a Japanese word being assimilated into the Malay language or the other way around. read my theories here.)
I’ll update this post as and when I come across or remember more words.
Frying pan = Furainggu panTaiya = Tyre
and others.
But English words are not the only ones that have been “Japanised” if I may say that.
Take for example the word for bread in Japanese is パン pronounced ”Pahn”.
Only today did I realize this word is a foreign word. Well I should have picked up the clue because it’s written in katakana and not hiragana like so: ぱん
Anything that’s written using the Katakana meant the word is foreign based.
Well I thought it was an original Japanese word because it doesn’t even sound like bread to me!
Well guess what, I remembered that the French word for bread is pain, pronounced as “pahn” (something closer to that)!
Well here’s another:
Clown = ピエロ pronounced “pi-e-ro”
Well pi-e-ro sounds like Pierrot, a french clown!
Alamak! (a supposedly malay exclamation word) = あらまあ！(This is could actually be a Japanese word being assimilated into the Malay language or the other way around. read my theories here.)
I’ll update this post as and when I come across or remember more words.
Taking advantage of the situation
23/02/09 09:51
Taken from
the Asahi Shimbun:
“Murakami uses award speech to voice support for Palestinians”
Nicely done. You have my respect old man.
“Murakami uses award speech to voice support for Palestinians”
Nicely done. You have my respect old man.
siftables
16/02/09 09:50
I have to
say something about this after I saw the
demonstration on TED on my ipod touch this morning on
the way to school.
Check out siftables
It’s brilliant. I totally agree with and share the idea and concept of the creator of siftables. Having, presenting and comprehending, manipulating information on our own human terms. Smart technology that do away with complex interfaces and act on what is more natural and human to us human beings.
Most machineries, equipments, websites, web application have interfaces that totally astounds us. It could look so complex that its too tiresome to learn how to operate it. So we just let it be.
Take for example my personal experience with this company that sells its web application service to schools. They sell a so-called one-stop solution where teachers and students and parents can login and put educational materials in there like lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, presentations, video, etc.
Now it all sounds brilliant until the teachers were asked to attend this training session to learn how to use the web app.
When it was presented to us on our computer screens in the lab, we were shocked. Most of us anyway. Others try to look impressed and diligently trying to understand how the thing worked.
The problem was, there were too many options presented on screen, too many buttons to press, too many things to click through before we can get down to do what we wanted to do in the first place. The person selling that web app was trying his best trying to make us understand how to go through each and every single option in that app.
Now, if you’re a total geek and a PC user, you might be slightly interested in what the trainer was trying to explain about the myriads of bells and whistles in that app. The rest of us, well, were basically struggling, become upset, resented and finally felt dejected because that app made most of the teachers feel STUPID.
Heck, I felt stupid. It was unbelievable. Yet the VP came up to me and casually said, “this should not be a problem for you right?” And with that she winked, suggesting that with my background in IT, this whole mess of a web app should be a walk in the park for me.
I gave a wry smile.
I didn’t even bother to learn how to work that terrible app. Heck I didn’t even bother to use it. I asked another teacher to help me to do it. Since the head teacher in charge of IT wants all teachers to make use of it to put up worksheets quizzes etc so that students can go online and do them when they are away from school. No prizes for guessing who agreed to engage that company to sell the web app to school. Hint: Head teacher in charge of IT. Was that a giveaway? oops…
So you see, simplicity is the key.
Ever since 2004 when I got introduced/suckered into Apple computers, my whole perspective changed about user interfaces and how information should be presented to people and how I should present information to people.
I was blown away because the clutter and the incessant bother of pop-up warnings, too many click-throughs, etc that I was expecting when I first used a Mac wasn’t there. It felt like a breath of fresh air. I have not used a PC since then.
Ever since then, I have been learning and creating interfaces that are more meaningful, easily understood, and as simple as humanly possible. I am still learning.
Check out siftables
It’s brilliant. I totally agree with and share the idea and concept of the creator of siftables. Having, presenting and comprehending, manipulating information on our own human terms. Smart technology that do away with complex interfaces and act on what is more natural and human to us human beings.
Most machineries, equipments, websites, web application have interfaces that totally astounds us. It could look so complex that its too tiresome to learn how to operate it. So we just let it be.
Take for example my personal experience with this company that sells its web application service to schools. They sell a so-called one-stop solution where teachers and students and parents can login and put educational materials in there like lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, presentations, video, etc.
Now it all sounds brilliant until the teachers were asked to attend this training session to learn how to use the web app.
When it was presented to us on our computer screens in the lab, we were shocked. Most of us anyway. Others try to look impressed and diligently trying to understand how the thing worked.
The problem was, there were too many options presented on screen, too many buttons to press, too many things to click through before we can get down to do what we wanted to do in the first place. The person selling that web app was trying his best trying to make us understand how to go through each and every single option in that app.
Now, if you’re a total geek and a PC user, you might be slightly interested in what the trainer was trying to explain about the myriads of bells and whistles in that app. The rest of us, well, were basically struggling, become upset, resented and finally felt dejected because that app made most of the teachers feel STUPID.
Heck, I felt stupid. It was unbelievable. Yet the VP came up to me and casually said, “this should not be a problem for you right?” And with that she winked, suggesting that with my background in IT, this whole mess of a web app should be a walk in the park for me.
I gave a wry smile.
I didn’t even bother to learn how to work that terrible app. Heck I didn’t even bother to use it. I asked another teacher to help me to do it. Since the head teacher in charge of IT wants all teachers to make use of it to put up worksheets quizzes etc so that students can go online and do them when they are away from school. No prizes for guessing who agreed to engage that company to sell the web app to school. Hint: Head teacher in charge of IT. Was that a giveaway? oops…
So you see, simplicity is the key.
Ever since 2004 when I got introduced/suckered into Apple computers, my whole perspective changed about user interfaces and how information should be presented to people and how I should present information to people.
I was blown away because the clutter and the incessant bother of pop-up warnings, too many click-throughs, etc that I was expecting when I first used a Mac wasn’t there. It felt like a breath of fresh air. I have not used a PC since then.
Ever since then, I have been learning and creating interfaces that are more meaningful, easily understood, and as simple as humanly possible. I am still learning.
SECOND VIDEO CONFERENCE BETWEEN SINGAPORE AND JAPANESE STUDENTS
20/09/08 01:59
Just
conducted another video conference session yesterday
(Friday). It was somewhat better than the first, and
maybe also not as good. What am I blabbering
about..?!
Well the good thing is there’s all the students from 2E6 from Pei Hwa secondary school to welcome the 4 Japanese students from Atsubetsu-kita. What a riot! Hahaha
Below is the video snippet from the session.
The not so good part about it is that we’re using basic equipments. The iMac in the Singapore school was not hooked up to any good speakers. And here in Japan I am just using the in-built microphone on my powerbook. So there was a lot of miscommunication due to unclear audio.
The next session I’ll make sure I’ll get an adaptor for a microphone. I’ll borrow a mic from the broadcasting room in the school.
3rd and last session for this year before I head off to visit elementary schools next month!
Well the good thing is there’s all the students from 2E6 from Pei Hwa secondary school to welcome the 4 Japanese students from Atsubetsu-kita. What a riot! Hahaha
Below is the video snippet from the session.
The not so good part about it is that we’re using basic equipments. The iMac in the Singapore school was not hooked up to any good speakers. And here in Japan I am just using the in-built microphone on my powerbook. So there was a lot of miscommunication due to unclear audio.
The next session I’ll make sure I’ll get an adaptor for a microphone. I’ll borrow a mic from the broadcasting room in the school.
3rd and last session for this year before I head off to visit elementary schools next month!
COMPARING SINGAPORE’S TEACHING CAREER AND JAPAN’S
11/09/08 20:23
Yeah…
so I found out today, after I asked casually whether
teachers are ranked in Japan’s school system.
I don’t wish to bore readers with my rant and complaints about the teaching career in Singapore. Those of you who have been through it or is currently going through it will know about EPMS and work review and what it actually does to the teaching career and the kind of environment it creates in the staff room.
Japan is trying out that very same system, currently employed by the corporate world, THIS YEAR.
I was shocked.
I told the teachers what the situation is like currently in Singapore after so many years of ranking teachers.
Of course there are positive points about this idea IF its carried out well and unbiased.
The world is of course not really that fair. But that’s not the point.
Anyway, I found out the teachers’ union in Japan is trying to fight this decision by the government.
But judging by the fact that they are trying out this ranking system already for a year; I think it’ll just quietly be implemented without anyone raising an objection… Much like the the public sectors in Singapore.
Well…
I wished the Japanese teachers “Good Luck!”
I don’t wish to bore readers with my rant and complaints about the teaching career in Singapore. Those of you who have been through it or is currently going through it will know about EPMS and work review and what it actually does to the teaching career and the kind of environment it creates in the staff room.
Japan is trying out that very same system, currently employed by the corporate world, THIS YEAR.
I was shocked.
I told the teachers what the situation is like currently in Singapore after so many years of ranking teachers.
Of course there are positive points about this idea IF its carried out well and unbiased.
The world is of course not really that fair. But that’s not the point.
Anyway, I found out the teachers’ union in Japan is trying to fight this decision by the government.
But judging by the fact that they are trying out this ranking system already for a year; I think it’ll just quietly be implemented without anyone raising an objection… Much like the the public sectors in Singapore.
Well…
I wished the Japanese teachers “Good Luck!”