Malaysian Mandarin

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Malaysian Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 马来西亚华语; traditional Chinese: 馬來西亞華語; pinyin: Mǎláixīyà Huáyǔ; Wade–Giles: Ma³-lai²-hsi¹-ya⁴ Hua²-yü³) is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Malaysia by ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. Today, Malaysian Mandarin is the lingua franca of the Malaysian Chinese community.^[1]

Malaysian Mandarin speakers seldom translate local terms or names to Mandarin when they speak. They would prefer to verbally use Malay place names in their original Malay pronunciation: for instance, even though the street name "Jalan Bukit Kepong" is written as "武吉甲洞路" (Wǔjí Jiǎdòng lù; 'Bukit Kepong Road') in local Chinese printed media, the local Chinese almost never use Wǔjí Jiǎdòng lù in daily conversations. There are exceptions, for example Taiping, since this name is derived from the Chinese language, when people mention this place when speaking local Mandarin, they always use its Mandarin pronunciation, "Tàipíng", instead of using its Malay pronunciation, which is closer to "Taipeng". Another example is when a place's Chinese translation varied vastly with its native Malay name, for example: for Teluk Intan, Seremban, Kota Kinabalu and Bau, they are preferably referred respectively as Ānsùn (安順) (which refers to "Teluk Anson", Teluk Intan's former colonial name), Fúróng (芙蓉) Yàbì (亞庇), and Shilongmen (石隆門).