salut.

i dunno what to write,

so i am going to write a

well,

you can call it a

'lesson'.

Language.

one of my favourite topics.

almost every one im my circle knows that.

alright.

let's start off with the two languages we speak in S'pore shall we?

English and Malay.

i'll start with English first.

right.

English is not a 'pure' language-

meaning that it almost has no original words on it's own.

it has borrowed words from the Romances-

French, Italian, Spanish-

in a nutshell,

all of these languages came from Latin.

( hey,

if you look incredulous check out the french, spanish and italian word for 'new' and 'life'-

which are nouveau, vie, nuevo, vida, novizio and vita respectively.

Compare them with the latin words for 'new' and 'life'-

nova and vitæ.

see?)

anyhoo,

english is the lingua franca of many countries in the world.

it is really intresting to see borrowed words,

and to come across them,

brings a smile to one's self.

exempli gratia-

from french we have

academic-academique

anguish-angoisse

from italian we have

carpet-carpita

cauliflower- cavolfiore

form spanish we have

canyon-cañón(prononced canyon)

alligator-el lagarto(the lizard)

and last but not least,

from latin we have

bonus-bonum

canine-canis

english is not all bad you know.

open your eyes,

homo sapiens!

malay is also another intresting laguaguage.

borrowing words from sanskrit(which eventually evolved to

Hindustani[ the 'land' of the Hindus, where the suffix -stan is Persian aka olde Iranian]

so do not be surprised

when you hear the word 'dunya'

in Bollywood movies.

examples:

sengsara- samsara

ahli nujum(astronomer)- this is a very intresting word.

combing the two arabic words,

ahli-اهل(Ahl'-people)

and

nujum-ﻡﺝﻥ(nujm-star)

you get 'people of the star'.

hence astronomer.

thus i end my 'lesson' here.

(credits to Wikipedia for having so much information. J'amor vous!)