lah

"Steady lah, life is just a series of experiences." So says the congenial Mr. Lam Kuen Tat George of Singapore on his résumé. If you ride a cab in Singapore, chances are the driver will say "Okay lah?" at the end of a sentence. On Date Trader.net, Cindy of Singapore, a "fun, humorous gal," writes, "Anybody also can, ugly, fat, handsome, pretty, all also can talk to me. 100% reply. don't shy lah." Welcome to Singapore lah!

Or perhaps you're in Malaysia. Here are some words of Malaysian English conversation, according to the girls of Bukit Bintang Girls School, 5 Science 2, Batch of 1996:

It's like, like, you know, or you know, but with a Singaporean or Malaysian flavor. As one Malaysian writes, "If you are walking the streets of London or sipping coffee at a sidewalk cafe somewhere in Paris, and you hear in plain English, 'So expensive-lah' or 'So hot-lah,' just turn around in the direction where the voice comes from and I guarantee you that ten out of ten, that person who just dotted his or her sentence with a lah is a Malaysian ... or Singaporean, which is close enough!"

It's not surprising that Malaysian and Singaporean varieties of English are similar, since the city-state of Singapore is next to Malaysia at the tip of the Malay peninsula. The word lah was adapted from a southern dialect of Chinese, which is widely spoken in both countries. About one-quarter of the population is literate in English in both countries, although the number of native speakers of English is small: about a quarter of a million or less than 10 percent of the population of Singapore. In that country purists sometimes complain about the "corruption" of the English language in Singapore English or "Singlish," but they enjoy it too much to lay down the lah.