There are times when Malaysians would have some disagreements with our neighbouring countries like Singapore and Indonesia over something trivial. However, some of these disagreements are more serious and can lead to heated arguments. For instance, that time when these two men quarrelled in the MRT or when netizens came after an Indonesian coach for using racist terms.
Some people just feel entitled and believe their country is more superior to others. With all that being said, if you’re planning to make content about a neighbouring country, there’s a possibility you might receive backlash for certain things whether it’s spreading misinformation or making fun of the other country. This Indonesian woman is getting a lot of attention for her mistranslations of the Malay language.
Untuk pengetahuan kamu..Malaysia tak ada guna perkataan Maling ya… pic.twitter.com/4UlB6txfwU
— 요시로 왕자 (@Cool_Wannabe82) December 9, 2022
Fitriana Surya Yanas or @sluggish_journey on TikTok is an Indonesian content creator who currently resides in Sabah and regularly posts language-related content on her profile. She recently posted a video that went viral before deleting it. The video in question showed the TikToker comparing words and phrases in 3 languages which were Indonesian, English, and Malay.
However, the viral post was not well-received as it appeared as though she made fun of the Malay language. In the now-deleted video, the TikToker intended to show the translation of certain Indonesian words in English and Malay. While the English translations were accurate, the Malay translations were not and the content creator was seen laughing at every Malay-translated word and phrase.
It is not clear whether the mistranslations were intentionally done to make fun of the Malay language but Malaysian netizens were not having it and criticised the influencer for spreading misinformation and disrespecting the language. The video has been reposted on Twitter where many expressed their dissatisfaction including Food vlogger, Ceddy.
https://www.tiktok.com/@sluggish_journey/video/7138348271071661313?is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7138348271071661313
For your information, this apparently isn’t the first time Fitriana has supposedly made fun of the Malay language. The TikToker once posted another language comparison video where the Malay translations were not accurately done, according to the context.
What do you think? Was she intentionally making fun of the language or was she joking about how ridiculous Google Translate can be?
Sources: TikTok, Twitter (1)(2)
