Thursday, October 30, 2008

Mmugosir

Ahh paghok nnisé, woh ttopoh keno maké mmugosir! *

When I was young I always heard about this creature called mmugosir, or more commonly known as mmugo, yet never questioned about it. Now that I'm older, I started wondering what the heck is a mmugosir?

My grandma would always complain that the fruits in her little orchard were always punoh habih maké ko mmugosir. And we would all just nod and sighed along, with nary an idea what sort of beast is this mmugosir.

Discussions with Kimi would always end up ngabé koksir and entailed a round or two of hysterics fits of laughter at our efforts to identify and give form to this mysterious animal. Usually such discussions would include another animal in - bokbong. I have a better idea of what that is, though I won't bet my life on it though. My best guess is bokbong = musang = a kind of civet. If I'm correct on that count, then why didn't they name Gua Musang as Gua Bokbong instead for the love of God? It's more interesting.

But I digress. Back to this semi-fantasy animal otherwise known as mmugosir, we finally decided to ask from the parents. But the answer given was not even half as interesting as the creatures we thought up in between the bouts of laughter. They said, a mmugosir is just a general word to denote any unknown animal. Yeap, killjoy.

I'm not Mmugosir!

I hope they're wrong though, at least so that I can keep wondering what sort of nocturnal, furry, ghastly creature that is so nasty that it has no qualms about stealing fruit from an old lady =P

* a literal translation would miss the mark, so what this phrase means is basically 'oh crap, the mmugosir ate the apples!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

bokbong tuh mmg spesies musang pon...hehe..ko leh refer sini...

http://duniainternet.com/blog/?s=bokbong

on mmugosir, i think i need to call you to listen what it really sounds...LOL

Anonymous said...

mcm mana nak pronounce 2??

never heard that kind of it..

Anonymous said...

typo 2...

never heard of it.

Anonymous said...

The spelling seems very foreign!!German or Italian or Some other languages? Pronounciation?

cacah said...

mmugosir, i think is built up from two words.
mmugo = benda [thing]
sir = asing [weird], from the word kok sir... i think.
itu pemahaman dan interpretasi sendiri la...

The Banker said...

life4hire: of course, anytime. haha

callister: it's prolly one of those localised colloquials i guess...

distant observer: a very foreign language indeed to most ppl - it's the kelantanese dialect!

aishah: that's a very good theory u know, u might just be correct. i never thought abt the 'sir' part before. shabbas inspector saab!

Embrace the Mystery said...

mmugosir probably refers to a thing, something..mmugo is benda kn? sir tu asing la..something yg xleh nk identify..the typical BM would say, BENDASING..but as usual, our language yg unik lagi creative ni (sambil mendabik dada) would go mmugosir..

cool~~

cacah said...

lagipun, mmugosir is simple and practical word la. hehe. :P

Anonymous said...

serupo la kalu tanyo nok gi mano? simply the old people would say "leggeh"

The Banker said...

anon: leggeh? sounds like nama tempat je. so leggeh can be used in the same way as mmugo(sir) huh? interesting...

Anonymous said...

Bro.

Bokbong and Musang is two different thing, different species ! That's why they dont call the place as Gua Bokbong !

Bokbong/Jebon/Bambun is Indian Mongoose ( Herpestes javanicus ) in English, or in bahasa surat, sometimes called 'cerpelai'.

Nih gambar dia :
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-IJabVGyHNE/SIH4FdvPKAI/AAAAAAAAACo/E-C3B-GC3X0/s320/jebon.jpg

While Musang is Asiam Palm Civet or Paradoxurus hermaphroditus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Palm_Civet