Dear Mr. Monk: Thank You!

Dear Mr. Monk:

You said in a comment at the Francis L. Holland Blog,

I would like to correct you that there is no language known as "Kifli" in this world. Zulkifli Bujang or affectionally known by Kifli speak and write Bahasa Malaysia. It is a language which is widely spoken by approximately 26 million peoples in Malaysia! It should be the "Malay Language".

-The Monk-

September 10, 2007 8:27 PM

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Francis L. Holland Blog disse...

Dear Mr. Monk:

Thank you so much for visiting my Encyclopedia, and for confirming my hypothesis that the language I am studying is, indeed, Malay -- a hypothesis I only developed after several hours of studying the Target Text which is one entry in Kifli's blog.

I have always wanted to learn an Asian language, preferably by traveling to Asia, but lack of money has prevented me from doing so. And I could make little progress with Chinese, because the characters are so foreign to my English-language eyes. However, something phenomenally serendipitous happened to me a few weeks back and I would like to share it with you:

I was checking my site meter to see who had visited my blog and how they found out about my blog when I realized that someone from Malaysia had visited my blog, coming from a blog called "Behind the Scene." Intrigued by this visit from afar, I clicked through to Behind the Scene and learned about the fascinating life and work of young Kifli Bujang, whose blog as served as a tiny window into a country of which I knew literally nothing before. I call my blog an Encyclopedia of the Kifli Language, because it is literally a study of ONE blog entry written by Kifli Bujang, taking in other studies for the purpose of understanding this one blog entry, the "Target Text."

As Amir observed recently in comments at the Encyclopedia,

So fun what you are doing. Reminds me of that Borges story where one volume of an encyclopedia from another planet is found. And then a group of scholars tries to piece together all of the other volumes, through extrapolation. Amir, of the Writing by Amir Malay Blog.

Meet Zulkifly Bujang, News Reporter in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Of course you are right that the language in which Kifli writes is called Malay! But the particular way in which he writes is "The Kifli Language." My insistence on this name, like every aspect of my Encyclopedia, is a product and acknowledgement of my own ignorance, because when I started studying Malay I had no idea what language I was looking at. I am still almost completely ignorant of your language and your country, and probably will be for some time, unfortunately, even with the greatest efforts to dispel this ignorance.

I would like to find the money to travel to Malaysia, exchanging more quickly my ignorance for at least a rudimentary knowledge of Malaysian culture, language and people, but long-distance travel is not always so easily accomplished. Malaysia is a long way away.

It would be terribly presumptuous of me to try to write an encyclopedia of an existing language that has over 26 million speakers in several countries. But, writing an encyclopedia of a fanciful language so whimsically named as "The Kifli Language" is really a humble acknoweldgement of my own ignorance, with no harm to Kifli intended either.

I hope Malaysian people will both laugh with my project and find it endearing, a compliment from afar to a people, a culture and a country about whom many of us in the West unfortunately knows far to little. :(

I know it is silly to call Malay "the Kifli Language," but that very light-hearted attitude of self-deprecation helps me never to take myself too seriously. I am glad that Mr. Bujang also seems to perceive my project as humorous and a compliment not because I have any special status to confer, but rather simply because of unexpected attention from afar.

It would be far more insulting to call my Encyclopedia an encyclopedia of "Malay," considering that my every description is a mere ignorant hypothesis, many of which will have to be revised or discarded entirely as more information becomes available.

For the time being, I hope that when people write to me in Malay they will not insult me very often, because I still don't understand what you're saying. But, I will someday! :)

Please agree that it would insult the Malay language and people far more at this time if someone so ignorant as myself presumed to write an "Encyclopedia of the Malay Language" rather than an "Encyclopedia of the Kifli Language." :)

September 11, 2007 9:37 AM