![\"Steamed](\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ThinkstockPhotos-541854342.jpg\")
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Malaysian steamed buns – what a passer-by might offer you in a rural village.<\/p>\n
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Brian, who grew up in Malaysia, is embarrassed at any suggestion that he\u2019s a high-achiever.<\/p>\n
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The 37-year-old, who works as a\u00a0language translator, educator and blogger, is more interested in helping others learn languages than bigging himself up.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhere did you hear that from?\u201d he says, wincing, when some of his many achievements are mentioned.<\/p>\n
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But to (briefly) lay out his credentials, he was born in Malaysia, knew four languages by the age of seven and is now fluent in eight languages and can get by in another four \u00a0\u2013 including two endangered languages.<\/p>\n
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In 2012, he gave up a well-paid job as an engineer to travel the world for two years and spent time learning new languages on three continents.<\/p>\n
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Explaining why languages are important to him, he says: \u201cLearning languages helps you understand how other people think and view the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
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For instance, in his native Penang Hokkien dialect of Malaysian, hospitality is a big deal.\u00a0 Instead of the English \u201chello, how are you?\u201d, the traditional greeting in Hokkien translates as \u201chave you eaten yet?\u201d<\/p>\n
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And you\u2019d answer honestly such as \u2018no, not yet\u2019 or \u2018yes I have\u2019 because people are genuinely interested, he explains.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIn fact, in a small rural village if you replied \u2018no, I\u2019m hungry\u2019, someone would probably say \u2018oh, I have some steamed buns you can have\u2019,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
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All languages reveal something about the people speaking them, says Brian (whose full name is Brian Loo Soon Hua), and that\u2019s particularly true of minority and endangered languages.<\/p>\n
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These are just three of the fascinating things he\u2019s learnt:<\/p>\n
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*Tribal languages which don\u2019t have a writing system, often have a more complex spoken language.\u00a0 For example, in several Australian aboriginal languages, it\u2019s taboo for a mother-in-law to speak to her son-in-law.\u00a0 And, if they do speak, they have to use a different form of the language, with a special set of vocabulary.\u00a0 \u201cI think this may be a case of putting obstacles deliberately in place!\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n
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*Some languages use noises such as whistles, clicks (like Xhosa, Nelson Mandela\u2019s native language) or popping sounds \u2013 but why? \u00a0One theory is that hunting communities developed these unusual forms of speech so as not to alert animals and birds to their presence when they were closing in on their prey. \u00a0Whistling sounds can also be heard across wider distances in mountainous areas.<\/p>\n
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*Some fishing and seafaring communities, such as Malaysian, Indonesian and Polynesian ones, favour words with more vowels. (For instance, the Indonesian word for dolphin is lumba-lumba and the Filipino word for grouper fish is lapu-lapu. ) Linguists think it\u2019s because these people are often communicating across a distance on a boat and vowel sounds carry further.<\/p>\n
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In the coming months, Brian will be working with uTalk to share more facts about languages, their origins and how they shape us.\u00a0 In the meantime, he tells us a useful phrase for farewell in his first native language.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s ban-ban kia (literally slow-slow walk) which means walk slowly, smoothly and safely.<\/p>\n
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