YOURSAY | Words matter - the debate over ‘keling’

YOURSAY | ‘The ‘others’ should refrain from using it since it's offensive to a certain community.’

Activist decries derogatory definition for 'Tambi' in online dictionary

The Wakandan: In the United States, the ‘n’ word is taboo, but in Latin America, it can be used as an endearing term.

Ultimately, the speaker of the word decides its intention, not the listener. The ‘k’ word would be perfectly innocuous if the speaker simply meant that as ‘Indian’. The intention of the word is more important rather than its usage.

Regarding terms for different races in different languages, a Sarawakian once narrated this:

He said, in Sarawak, the Chinese called the Ibans "la khia", translated as "son of the savage". The Malays called them Dayaks, translated as "foolish native or country bumpkin". 

On the other hand, the Ibans called the Chinese "Cina tucang" roughly meaning "pigtail Chinese", and they call the Malays "laut", meaning "sea".

He was tickled when he said that the Malays would refer to themselves as "laut" when they talked to the Ibans. The word they used got stuck which started as a lazy, perhaps degrading term but nevertheless descriptive.

People don’t make a big deal of it and eventually, today, fewer of the words are used because the population has become more educated and besides, no malice was intended in their usage.

Anonymous_15897060865429524: The older generation still use the word “keling”, but they don’t mean it in a derogatory way.

Even older Chinese still call them “Keling-yen”, and they are puzzled if an Indian is insulted because their Indian friends in the past were okay with it.

Historically, the word “keling” did not have a derogatory meaning, unlike the n-word in the US, which was a pejorative form of "negro". Keling people originally meant people from the Kalinga kingdom. The British also called southern Indians “Kling”.

I guess over time, for some reason or another, Indians felt it was a bad word and decided it was an insult. I guess if they don’t like this word, it’s best not to use it.

I suppose times change, but the older generation is still accustomed to speaking a certain way, largely due to the non-derogatory history of this word.

Evin K: @Anonymous_15897060865429524. I bet you’re also from this “older generation” trying to make not-so-subtle excuses for racism.

Going by your logic, the slave owners didn’t mean to own slaves in the past and the women’s suffrage movement was a result of well-intended men.

Come on, enough with the nonsense and stop making excuses for the “older generation”. They were amongst the most racist generation of our time.

Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) is a fully functioning body today. Things like this should not occur anymore, and people must stop defending institutions like them, especially when it comes to clear-cut racist practices such as this.

For those of you who are still confused, this is exactly why the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd) will never see the light of day in Malaysia and also why we will never become a developed nation in the next few decades.

We will continue to have people who are still living in the past, people with third world mentality, running things.

I can’t blame them. We are the ones who continue to elect these types of half-baked leaders over and over again. We truly deserve this government. Serves us right.

Beman: To be honest, I cannot see how the word “keling” is an offensive term unless the meaning has evolved and is now intended or perceived to be derogatory by some.

Its origin is probably from the Kalinga kingdom in history. The people from the Kalinga kingdom were well spread throughout Southeast Asia in early history that they had come to be known as “Keling people”.

Given a Hokkien friend of mine told me he has always known Indians as “Kek Leng Nun” (literally translated as “Kek Leng people”, which I think is derived from “Keling”) with no derogatory slur. 

I do not know when and how “Keling” has started to have a racial overtone. In the same light, I think the Chinese do not mind being called “Tang people” or “orang Tionghua”. I may be wrong here.

VP Biden: A lot of words worldwide started off as normal descriptive ethnic-based words. The words were then used to malign, insult, create animosity, etc, within the wider community.

When this happened, the word that was once acceptable became derogatory. “Negro” is widely used in Latin countries, Asia, etc, but deemed derogatory in Europe and North America.

If the subjects of the word feel insulted in the current scheme of things, the “others” who insist on using it should refrain from using it since it's offensive to a certain community. It’s called mutual respect.

In Malaysia, derogatory terms against all ethnicities are widely used by both the oppressor and oppressed.

Just A Malaysian: In the eyes of the rightist who claim supremacy over all others, we are either “Cina babi”, “keling” or plain “pendatang”.

A country cannot progress if it continuously degrades 30% of its population. This explains our present predicament, which will impoverish all Malaysian regardless of race.

BrownCheetah9736: It’s a sad state of affairs when everything is seen through the lenses of race. 

If race in the country was never made an issue by the politicians, then perhaps such words would not have been viewed as derogatory.

We all look forward to the next definition of “pendatang” by Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka.

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