what to call the indians in hokkien? part 2

actually the above heading should be ‘what to refer to the indians in the hokkien language’.

i realise that in the comments of my previous post, i did not make myself so clear when i mentioned what to call the indians in hokkien…. when we only have the word ‘kelinga’ (or keling-nga) and nothing else. a number of people mistaken that when i asked that i meant calling directly (one to one) an indian as ‘kelinga’. no of course i don’t mean that. what i meant is what hokkien word to use for indian. as i stated as far as i know, we only have ‘kelinga’ to refer to the indians (not to call them by it). e.g. i’ll say “in the seminar, we have 23 chinese and 18 ‘kelinga’ (indians).” no i can’t use ‘intor lang’ as shanks suggested (in earlier comments) as that is not hokkien.

of course i won’t call my indian friends kelinga but when i am refering to the indians with my hokkien speaking friends i will refer them as kelinga… and to me it is just a word… a word meaning indian… and it means no offense at all. as i stated earlier, what else (which word) can i use??

to many of you who feel that keling is derogatory, can you give a strong, solid answer why you think so? do you know the true origin of the word keling? do you say keling is derogatory just so as to follow the herd (since many people said so!)?

there are quite a few different version of the origin of the word keling when i do some googling. as someone in this newsintercom site said “whether the term keling is offensive depends on a person’s perception and life experience”, so the person will then choose which version he wants to believe in…. and how s/he perceive it, will determine if s/he see it as derogatory.

i believe though one person – a long time friend whom i met only once – sabri zain said it well that the term keling is not offensive at all but have a historical background. (btw, sabri has a good site on the history of the malaya peninsula). and an iban had said keling is a hero name for the iban community!

those 2 links i quoted above came from malaysiakini’s letter somewhere aug to dec. 2003, when there was this hoo-haa of a certain group asking for dewan bahasa dictionary to remove the word keling from its dictionary. when you click on one of the link, it will bring you to many other links where you can read about what others said about keling.

i was surprised when i saw a letter by one k. narayanasamy, where i quoted part of what he wrote:
I believe that those Indians who are successful in their fields do not feel at all humiliated by the mention of this word. Only those with an inferior complex feel as though they are being humiliated by others with this term.

But, then, if the term is officially declared derogatory and removed from the DBP dictionary, will that mean nobody will use it, or the Malay dictionaries in other countries will leave it out?
read further.

then i was even more surprised when i notice he is the same guy who just recently wrote to malaysiakini complaining about how derogatory the word keling is, which i have quoted in my post earlier.

is this a contradiction or what? that time, in dec. 2003, he gave the impression keling is not derogatory but now he said it is.

well, i would like to quote him back – “only those with an inferior complex” feel the word keling is derogatory (as what wits0 and ali pointed out in comments in my earlier post). he, in his latest letter to malaysiakini enforce this on himself.

to the others, examine yourself and honestly ask yourself what do you know of the term keling and why do you feel offended at it.

NOTE: i will reply to the comments in this keling post and the tudung post tomorrow as no time to do so today. already 2.25am now.