Whattudu?

Döh nök wak guane?! is a palliative for many ills, a branch to grab when on the slide, a phrase underlined by a shrug.

What does it mean? asks Anasalwa who llives in the US of A.. Well, Anasalwa, döh nök wak guane?, whattudu?

In Trengganu, whattudu comes in two degrees: nök wak guane setabok? and nök wak guane setarang? (the döh is optional, it simply means ‘so’) and in each instance I’m at a loss for words as both setabok and setarang are little things, originating, I suspect, from seketil habok (a pinch of dust, a miniscule) and seketil haram (Trengganuspeak, harang), (a pinch of nowt). So, in Trengganuspeak, takdök setabok, takdök setarang, precious little, nothing at all. Here now is that harang (standardspeak, haram) again: Takdök sikik harang! Nothing at all!

Ai, kucing tu, dök léh lepa setabok, habis nye ranggöh ikang panggang! is yet another example of setabok in action. The cat cannot be ignored even a wee jot, it’s now devoured the grilled fish from the plate! It’s lepa what caused it, the act of neglect, which comes from the standardspeak alpa, a word you don’t see very often these days. Perhaps it has gone back to the Sanskrit home town of its birthplace, doing its darndest to reinforce any act of inadvertance or neglect. Would that be the same lepa that Trengganu chefs put in their pulut lepa, a pulut (glutinous rice) so good that it cannot be left unattended? Ranggöh that’s a graphic word, isn’t it, much like pölö’, two words to describe the act of stuffing something into the mouth in a hurry, in desperation, in greed.

In the Old Panggong Capitol in Kampong China (next door to the Setana - Sultana) they played soppy old tunes before the Saturday matinee, with bells ting-a-ling-a-ling and birds that were singing and that’s amore. And there was que sera, sera, what will be will be, that spun round and round on its needle-track every Saturday from an old singing box, the peti nnyanyi. Que sera, sera...what will be, will be. That was probably close to the Trengganuspeak döh nök wak guane!”