Malay Chetty creole language
The Malay Chetty creole language is a Malay-based creole spoken by the Chetties, a distinctive group of Tamil people found mainly in Malacca in Malaysia and Singapore, who have adopted Chinese and Malay cultural practices whilst also retaining their Hindu heritage.
Spoken since the 16th century by descendants of Tamil merchants of the Malacca Straits, Malay Chetty creole may be historically related to Sri Lanka Creole Malay. The current language status is moribund, due to inter-marriage and out-migration. There has been a language shift towards Malay instead.
Malay Chetty creole is a mix of Malay, Tamil and English, although the latter's presence in the creole is not as prominent compared to the first two languages. Because of the strong influence of Malay, Malay Chetty creole is not very different from other Malay dialects, especially the Middle Malacca Malay dialect. Nonetheless, it does have its own unique features.
Malay Chetty creole shares many features with Baba Malay, suggesting that they may have come from the same source language that is Bazaar Malay.
Phonology
Comparison with Standard Malay
Deletion of the Phonemes r and h
- Final is omitted
- * benar ≙ 'true'
- /h/ is omitted in initial, final and mid positions except in a few words
- * hijau ≙ 'green'
- * tahu ≙ 'to know'
- * darah ≙ 'blood'
Monophthongisation
- Final is reduced to half-closed front
- * pakai ≙ 'to wear'
- Final is reduced to half-closed back
- * pulau ≙ 'island'
Phoneme Deletion in Consonant Clusters in Trisyllabic Words
- Mid consonant cluster /mb/ is reduced to
- * sembilan ≙ 'nine'
Phoneme Insertion
- Glottal is inserted at word final position in words that end with
- * bawa ≙ 'to bring'
- * cari ≙ 'to search'
- * garu ≙ 'to scratch'