Speaking Tinglish

By Seymour Cumming

There's this new language they're speaking here in Chiang Mai, it sounds a bit odd but it's great fun. I start speak also, no difficult, it called Tinglish.

My friend Benny speak it quite well, I hear him all the times with his girlfriend, "Why you not go market today," "I give money, but no have beer in fridge." Heck, she speaks better English than I do, but the old bugger seems to have a brain impediment when it comes to Asians. "I a teacher English, three year now," he explains to his Thai teacher (who has a degree in English herself).

"No want pay, expensive too much, can buy America velly cheap," he tells the shop assistant in Central. She's a cute little number with a nice American accent, "Welcome to Robinsons, may I help you," she purrs perfectly, but my man Benny seems to be permanently stuck in 'bar girl lingo'. The bugger still greets the reception in my apartment block with 'Sa-was-dee krap'!

Man, even I have caught on to this. Just the other day I spotted myself asking for 'flied lice' and even promised my mate I'd meet him at the Irish Pub to watch the 'footbon'. Crikey! Next I'll be off to 'sa-chool' for study of Thai. Heck, every time I meet someone new I can habitually ask 'where you come flom?', and I'll start dropping verbs and using the noun instead. For example, 'I will home now' or 'I will shopping, this night'.

"You come my apartment, give massage good, go home tomollow." Strewth, what is it with us ex-pats. We all come out here to teach English but we can hardly spek and spel ourselves. Ah, mai pen rai, this is Thailand hey, things wouldn't be authentic if things were perfect.

Tinglish is kinda fun, it takes a stuffy old language with incomprehensible verb conjugations and more spelling exceptions than rules, turning it into a cool Hollywood-speak that would have the colonialists cringing and choking over their gin and tonics hey! (Oh how I yearn for the glory days of the old empire, subjugating the natives, dressing them in whites and educating them in the finer points of Her Majesty's etiquette and language.)

I don't blame the locals much though, heck English is bloody difficult hey. Try explaining to a Thai why bow tie doesn't rhyme with cow guy. And what about 'people', how's come that one isn't spelt peeple? Then there's 'friend' and 'fiend', 'to-may-to' and 'to-mar-to', 'asshole' and 'arsehole'. Good grief! Poor buggers, no wonder the Thais get so creative with our jolly proper Queen's English.

Just the other day I noticed that my favourite restaurant on Niminhemin road is now 'contemporary closed'. The big sign outside informs me it will re-opin in October. I love the toilet signs that say 'lady and gen', and notices like 'don't flow garbage to the canal? disobey to be fine 2000 baht'. Or how about 'an ultimate little guidebook to a tough and skill proven possible'?charming eh!

But it is the menus that are my favourite source of new Tinglish words. Try ordering knackeredwurst, or chicken gordon blue. Pork shops are also popular but I fall about myself laughing at the sight of eggs scrambling or steak ergs an shits. (actually I made that last one up myself, it isn't that bad really).

Hoo boy! I recommend we all start speaking this new language, that way we really can misunderstand each other. We can blame it on culture and wander around talking about weapons of math instruction and the threat of world tourorism. New important words like 'len game' and 'sanook' can be used along with 'mia farang' and, of course, 'mai pen rai', which could mean almost anything from 'OK, so I admit there were no weapons of mass destruction' to 'sorry, a refund is totally out of the question'.

Of course, there are some words and phrases we would have no use for in the new Tinglish language, such as driver's licence, town planning, maintenance, wing mirror, customer services, deadline, hi-fidelity, silence and ethics.

Soon everyone's gonna talk Tinglish good I reckon, mebbe they'll even teach it at the British Council and AUA!

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, 'shock jock' and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer's Weekly, Nyet!, Chessworld and Cross-stitching Magazine.

He's been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he's written the author's biog, and not progressed much beyond that. His controversial commentary on ex-pat life in Thailand appears in Chiang Mai City Life Magazine.