'Cannot, lah' and more Malaysian oddities

A UNIQUE feature of our local spoken English includes the employment of the word “can” or “cannot” often with a “lah” added on. Visitors to Malaysia can’t fail to notice how addicted we are to the word “can”.

Malaysians are quite happy to forget about the use of the word as a verb and tend to use it as a positive or negative interjection, or even as a question. Thus when we are asked by someone, “Do you have time to take me to the tourist spots?”, a Malaysian may answer “can!” or “cannot-lah” in place of the conventional “Yes, of course” or “I am afraid not, I am busy”. A foreigner may think that a rowdy “can-can” dance is about to take place with our liberal use of the word!