Here are some of the things I like about Manglish, or at least find interesting. Manglish speakers will be surprised that I'm not discussing the ubiquitous sentence tags lah, mah and meh.  I will need many years of further study before becoming competent to do so.

"Where got?" = (depending on context) How do you know? What makes you say that? That doesn't make sense to me. I doubt that.

Example:  "This soup is salty." -- "Where got salty?" Note that it doesn't mean Where did you get the soup? or How did it become salty?

To add intensity:  "Where got like that one?"

To further add intensity:  "Ai-yo! Where got!?"

"Last time" = (depending on context) earlier this morning, last week, when we were young, before the continents had formed. Because Manglish only uses the bare uninflected verb (no past tense), this expression is very useful.

Example:  "Last time got no seat reservation, now got." = Previously you couldn't reserve a seat, but now you can.

Here's a lovely example:  "Where got we do like that one last time at Siemens?" = At Siemens we certainly wouldn't have done it that way.

(In an apartment complex) "Last time got one for sale, no more 'ready." = Recently there was a unit for sale, but it has been sold. (Note that the last word is short for already, which in Manglish can mean absolutely anything -- or nothing).

"some more" This is another sentence tag that can mean almost anything or almost nothing.

Example:  "Federal Highway so jam one. Ten o'clock some more." This means that there was a bad traffic jam on the Federal Highway, which was surprising because it was ten o'clock already, and you would expect the rush to be over by then. Note that it would be wrong to use the Manglish already in that sentence, even though the standard meaning of already is implicit.

Another example:  "Giant got offer for tilapia. Some more got one coupon." Tilapia is on sale at Giant supermarket. We can save even more because we have a coupon. This example illustrates the fact that some more does not always occur at the end of a sentence. Also, in Manglish the indefinite article is rarely used. It is usually omitted, but for emphasis the word one can be employed.

More examples for "one" ...

Here is a sentence of six words, three of which are one:

Example:  "Each one got one maid one."  Each person has their own maid. In this example, the first one is the same as in standard English, the second one stands for the indefinite article a, and the last one is completely superfluous, like saying over at the end of a two-way radio transmission.  

In response to "Have you seen my handbag?" you may be asked, "Ai Foong give one ah?"  Here is the exception that proves the rule, where the word "one" actually means "one."  The question means, "Are you talking about the one Ai Foong gave you?"

"You buy like Mama buy one lah." = Why don't you buy the same one that Mama bought?

One more one:  "Clean ah, the market?" -- "Market like that one lah!" = What am I, the Sanitation Department inspector? It's a market, for goodness sake. Haven't you ever seen a market before?  This example illustrates how concise and efficient Manglish can be, compared with standard English.

"can" and "cannot"

Example:  "Can 'ready ah?" This might mean Is the chicken cooked? Is the paint dry? Should I turn off the air conditioner now?  It's possibly the most common sentence in Manglish. There are only two possible answers:  Can or Cannot. The word yes does not exist in Manglish.

You can learn a lot from this 4-word gem:  "Close aw-dee cannaw open." = If you close it you won't be able to open it again. Twelve words into four! This example illustrates that if and it are also excess baggage; sure they're only two letters apiece, but why waste your breath on them? Same with is.  (It's amazing that you can jettison most of the most common words in the language and still more or less express yourself. English has hundreds of common verbs, but you can say almost anything using three of them: can, do, got). The second word in the example is of course our friend already. (Okay, when I said it means nothing, I may have been exaggerating). This example also illustrates that final consonants are often not pronounced, but sometimes they are.

"until" is yet another meaningless word -- "Why the fella park until like that one?" = "That person has parked badly."  My theory is that so many useful words have been omitted, there is a compensating urge to insert some meaningless ones.

"no need lah!"

This is another strong candidate for most common Manglish sentence. Depending on the context, it can mean I think we already have enough rice left over from lunch or Please come in, don't bother taking off your shoes, or No thanks, I prefer it without sugar.  The first two syllables are expressed as a vague hum, followed by the clear explosive lah! which is of course the part that is semantically empty.

"You-know-or-not" (compressed into about two and a half syllables)

Example:  "Jim Carrey is Canadian, you-know-or-not." This is not really a question. First, because you just told me that Mr Carrey is Canadian, you can't logically be asking me in the same breath whether I know it. Anyway, the speaker is not really interested in whether the listener knew previously that Mr Carrey is Canadian. What the phrase signifies is that the speaker was mildly surprised to learn that Mr Carrey is Canadian, and thinks you also might be interested. Or perhaps is just trying to show how smart she is.

"outstation" I like this one for its quaint colonial feel.

Example:  "I go outstation next week." = I am going out of town.

"off" can be used as a verb in Manglish.

Example:  "I off 'dee." = I turned it off. The last word here is an abbreviation of the abbreviation of already (see above).

Another variation is "Can off one 'dee" = Please turn it off.

borrowed words

Manglish makes use of many Malay and Chinese words. In fact if they choose to do so, like Jamaicans, Quebecois and others, Manglish speakers can carry on a long conversation in your own language, sort of, without your understanding a bit of it.

"Your baju so cacat one." = Your clothes are not nice.  Cacat is pronounced chuh-chut.

Another example:  "Koay teow cannot!" = You cannot have wide flat noodles [with this order]. 

"Hull wool balik kampung" = Everyone is going to their home town. The first two words here are "whole world."

Pronunciation

This topic is too broad for me to address, and anyway too difficult to deal with in print. But let me give you a taste.

"You wan haw-bow-lay?"

"Sorry?"

"Haw-bow-lay haw-bow-lay haw-bow-lay!"

This example illustrates that when the non-speaker fails to understand something, the correct response on the part of the Manglish speaker is not to translate into standard English, which he or she can speak perfectly well, rather to repeat the Manglish expression several times very loudly and rapidly. Of course the listener has no more chance of understanding this than a rabbit, but the point is to impress upon him that he needs to keep working hard to improve his Manglish. In this particular case, the item on offer was a hard-boiled egg.