A particular phrase has been very popular among teenagers, that is マジ卍 (maji manji).
Maji means “really,” and nobody really knows what manji means.
When asked, these teens say it doesn’t mean anything. So how do you use something that has no meaning? These younger demographic proudly explains, you can use it in response to anything and basically add “manji” to the end of anything; what’s important is not the meaning but how you feel. Well, how do I place emotions behind a word that has no meaning?
There are various hypotheses to how this word came about, including a typo of “maji,” but my concern is less about the source of the word. I think it’s perfectly fine if someone makes a mistake and it becomes funny to use it to poke fun, and then it spreads. In this case, the purpose behind using the word is known. But almost everyone using it has no idea how and where it came from, and worse, they are even certain that the word has no meaning. Which means, there really is no meaning behind using “maji manji” apart from “because everyone else is using it.”
That’s as good as articulating any random sound.
Have humans degenerated into a being where we are just producing sound that has no meaning?
Explain wahlao.
Wah lao can be an expression of exasperation, helplessness, and various emotions but nobody knows what manji means or expresses.
how about ‘sia’ ‘hor’ ‘lor’? Im not sure if im getting it right but i’m sure manji is like the above 3 word-‘endings’ that carry emotions after many people use it in a certain way and in that way, it is tag to the emotion of the users? Hmm. Are there examples of how they use manji?
I get your point. There could probably be something to it when it first started but now, they say you can reply maji manji to anything. Like really anything. If I do a deeper search, I can probably find out more details to the word, but as with all high-school girl lingo, it will go out of trend by next year so there’s not much point learning how to use it. Especially since nobody around me uses it.
This topic seems interesting, i like looking at strange words and meanings, i did some poking around, it seems to be an intensifier to ‘maji’ or some sort of mangled form (some sources say you can use it like the English equivalent of ‘lit’ (like that shit’s lit yo).
But as a Singaporean, i guess you need not be too surprised since we are the masters or mixing/using/accepting Rojak language. We also have our own hard to explain words (in terms of their origins?) like (‘chey’ to express disappointment <- where does this even come from), and how about the phrase that you always hear in school last time (uh, uh siol), or even in the English community weird words getting accepted by oxford dictionary (awesomesauce <- like wth nth to do with sauces or anything, and manspreading <- sounds gay but totally not) 😀
I’ve never heard “uh siol” during my time at school =\ You’re probably closer to my cousin’s age since I’ve heard my cousin use it. In any case, I guess it’s similar to a lot of what we say. Except that we know those terms instinctively and since I don’t get manji and nobody seems to know how to explain, it’s a useless sound to me.
I 88 one, we are only 5 years apart! Maybe you never hang out with enough malay peeps haha! Even during my BMT time, (mostly 21-23) it was an uh uh siol spam >.< (my coy is made up for predominantly malay peeps). But i feel this is the beauty of human language, it's constantly evolving and we make up words to get by in life, after all language is just a tool for communication 😀
Haha, how do you even pronounce it? Siol…
uh uh siol!
xD
Thanks ah!
Maji Manji
Hhahahas
LOL!!