VARIETIES OF MALAY AND OTHER CODES USED BY DESCENDANTS OF THE EARLY TELEGU IMMIGRANTS IN SARAWAK

Abstract

The Telegu community was brought into Sarawak in 1900 by Rajah Charles Brooke
as labourers. Today, there are 92 members belonging to three generations of Telegus
in Sarawak. Due to the need to communicate with people around them, the first
generation who spoke Telegu at home started speaking Bazaar Malay with Malay,
Dayak and Chinese neighbours in Batu Satu, which was an early Telegu settlement.
The Telegu children first stayed in Pendam, a typical Malay village, and later in
Batu Satu, a typical Hokkien Chinese area. Due to these linguistic environments,
they eventually developed Telegu pidgin Malay with words borrowed from Sarawak
Malay, Hokkien and English to become their new home language. Today, Bazaar
Malay is still spoken by the first generation of Telegus with neighbours in Batu Satu
and their own pidgin Malay is spoken among the second generation of Telegus.
However, the third generation speaks fluent English and Standard Malay in
addition to the Sarawak Malay dialect. Data was obtained through audio recording
of home conversations, so as to ascertain the varieties of Malay used by the three
generations of Telegus today, i.e. Bazaar Malay (G1), Telegu pidgin Malay (G2),
Standard Malay (G2 &G3) and Sarawak Malay dialect (G3).