thepoliticalcat, 12 days ago

@liztai Wei shen-me? Just based on the sound, is it? Da ma ren? I don't get it?

trollball, 13 days ago

@liztai I get ma in Malay = horse. But where is the big/da from? And where did the -lay or -laya go?

I know you didn’t make these decoy, ofc.

Not that English is good at this, either.

liztai, 13 days ago

@trollball it's just a short form of the full name 马来西亚. Maybe it's just better than being known as 小马🐎

liztai, 13 days ago

@trollball @rakyat do you know why?

rakyat, 12 days ago

@liztai @trollball Apparently it’s because of Sabah/Sarawak and (at that time) Singapore joining the federation. So East Malaysia + West Malaysia = Pan(Big) Malaysia

However only people in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong uses 大马. People in Mainland China uses 马来, which can easily be confused with “Malay”.

liztai, 12 days ago

@rakyat I actually thought China folks calls us 大马 too and we call ourselves 马来西亚人
@trollball

rakyat, 12 days ago

@liztai Some people joke that it’s because China folks unwilling to make it sound like we are bigger than them haha.
@trollball