Orthographic Reforms of Standard Malay Online: Towards Better Pronunciation and Construction of a Cross-language Environment

Abstract

The widespread use of communication tools on the Internet has provided greater possibilities as well as increased flexibility for orthographic reforms. As a result, spellings have been established that are closely matched to ‘written speech’, which emulate verbal expression plus the elegant addition of letters from foreign languages. This study will look in particular at Evolutionized Malay (EM), which is cultivated on the Internet. Our analysis of EM reveals two principal functions: 1) EM words performed better in displaying pronunciation properties and 2) EM words are able to form an environment we termed as Cross Language Environment (CLE). It may be that these roles hold a greater degree of attraction and motivates toward higher interaction within a cyberspace community. Surveys on the frequency of the occurrence of EM in the cyberspace of Malaysia are shown based on web forums and blogs pages. It is fascinating to see that EM has quite a substantial number of users throughout Malaysian cyberspace.