Stoloko?

Language is a live thing. It grows, evolves, changes, adapts according to the time. And if your language does not have a word to express what you have in mind, well, copy it from someone else's.

Which brings me back fond memories of some bastardised English words I learned when I was a learner driver. Stoloko and gostan.

Stoloko is a stop sign, and gostan means to reverse, as in reversing your car.

When I first heard these strange words, I was pretty sure they were of foreign origin, but could not figure out how they came about. Asking is useless too, as everyone else, including dad, just used them without the need to know the words' origin. That would have been quite the norm for words which are clearly your own. You can tell which words are your own, and which words are not, as the foreign words contain pronunciations not normally associated with your own language. And 's' is forbidden in Chinese language.

Then a eureka moment hit one day, and stoloko was debunked as 'stop look go'. And gostan as 'go stern'.

Encarta dictionary contains a definition for 'go stern', and it says it is used informally in Malaysia to mean 'reversing'. It seems, only Malaysians would use and understand this word. Sadly, Encarta does not contain an entry for stoloko.

Of course, such copying of foreign words are still ongoing to this day for relatively young languages, like Malay. For a more mature language, such as English, it would have largely incorporated words of foreign origin a long time ago. When you have used other people's words long enough, you can claim them as your own (This may apply for other things as well. If you have occupied others' land long enough, it is yours too).

Thus in Malay, komunikasi is for communication, rasisme is for racism. And so on and on.

Long ago, I thought that the use of words like stoloko and gostan were tasteless. I never used these 'words' myself. It doesn't feel so bad after all.