April 28, 2007
(3 votes)
Loading ...Mat Salleh = Mad Sailor?
IDA said:
There is no ethno-religious reference; Mat Salleh is a corruption of Mad Sailor. A term given to the Brits as they fall out of their ships in Penang or Singapore aiming for a drunkenly jolly time on terra firma. The sailors were probably the lowly ship mates /hands living on beer rations, ravaged by scurvy and have very bad gigi (teeth) and gusi (gums)and have not washed for weeks. As for their speech, well, let’s just say, was not as refined as their tri-corn wearing ‘tuans’.
An average cakap Mat Salleh will be expletives galore, slurred words emanating from gaps in their trap.(Sound like an average Saturday night in Bristol city centre)
I shall await salvos from the Mat Sallehs in this form with bated breath.
Well, the main topic of this blog post was about the fairly widespread practice of calling Malaysia’s national language Bahasa when it should be called either Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Melayu but the above comment was amusing & worth pointing out here =)
Trackback
Dear Mamakk,
Love your site. As some one who was born in Penang. I am trying to find mamaks in my family line. So far only southern Thais and southern Sumatrans show themselves up.
If you have written about this, then ignore. Mamak - generally refered to Indian muslims in the straits settlement states. I was told it a respecful term, no different from ‘Uncle’.
Go back half a millenium you will find ‘Mamak Bendahara’ - the affectionate yet reverential term given to the second in command in the Malaccan Sultanate; which we all know is full of people of various ethnicity.
Sometime ago, a theory was put out that the Hang Tuah and friends were actually Han Chinese whose families settled in Melaka and used the prefix Han, as a Chinese Muslim would use the prefix ‘Ma’ as on Ma Huan the explorer. Hang Tuah was Han Toa Ah, Hang Jebat was Han Chee Pat, Hang Lekir and Hang Lekiu, who are brothers, were Han Li Ke and Han Li Kiu.
Hang Kasturi decided to ‘go native’ and changed his name which was Han Li Mao.(Guffaw! GuffaW! Guffaw!)
Again, love your site
Comment by Ida Bakar — April 29, 2007 @ 7:23 pm