Tag: Hokkien
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Of abandoning mother tongues and shame
A reaction to a fascinating essay on Substack about the cultural pressure of “leaving the mother tongue” and adopting other languages for class mobility. I reflect on the dynamics of language use among Malaysian Chinese, where the shame is about not mastering more languages or being slow at learning languages.
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Utterly random episode 3: What it means to be multilingual in Malaysia
In this episode, I talk about why Malaysians are multilingual, how people react to this, and the politics of language in Malaysia. And you get to hear me speak Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and English.
Elizabeth Tai 