I was in Malaysia last week, (my first visit back since the terrible incident), and discovered an interesting change in the Malay language.
The word for “thank you” in Malay is “teramakasi”. The standard “you’re welcome” response in Malay is “sama samas” or at least it used to be. In Malaysia last week I noticed I was not getting the sama sama response when I thanked people as I normally would and have come to expect, instead I was either getting a nod and a smile or another word I had only heard in Indonesia before; “kambali”.
I asked my Malaysian friend why this was. He explained that sama sama sounded too much like Osama so people were reluctant to say it. Apparently people have started to use the Bahasa Indonesian word kambali to replace the offending sama sama.
Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are two very closely related languages.
Just thought I’d share.
Jack