Ah Beng

Ah Beng (Chinese: 阿炳; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: a-bêng or a-bîng) is a stereotype applied to a certain group of young Chinese men in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore and Malaysia.The female equivalent of an Ah Beng is an Ah Lian.

Etymology

Ah Beng comes from the romanization of the Hokkien pronunciation of 阿明 (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: a-bêng). 明 is a word commonly used in the names of Chinese males in the region, thus the term "Ah Beng" alludes to their commonness. In the Cantonese-speaking parts of Malaysia, Ah Beng is also known as lala zai. 'Lala' has no actual meaning in itself, while 'zai' (pronounced 'chai') means 'boy'. 'Lala zai' refers to individuals who speak Manglish and possess a strong preference for gaudy fashions or hairstyles.

In popular culture

Ah Bengs have been featured in several Singaporean films, including:

Beng

Beng may refer to:

See also

Bengü

Bengü is a common Turkish given name. It means "eternal", "endless", "never-ending", or "immortal".

People

Bengali alphabet

The Bengali alphabet or Bangla alphabet (Bengali: বাংলা লিপি Bangla lipi) is the writing system for the Bengali language and is the 6th most widely used writing system in the world. The script is shared by Assamese with minor variations, and is the basis for the other writing systems like Meithei and Bishnupriya Manipuri. Historically, the script has also been used to write Sanskrit in the region of Bengal.

From a classificatory point of view, the Bengali script is an abugida, i.e. its vowel graphemes are mainly realized not as independent letters, but as diacritics attached to its consonant letters. It is written from left to right and lacks distinct letter cases. It is recognizable, as are other Brahmic scripts, by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together which is known as মাত্রা matra. The Bengali script is however less blocky and presents a more sinuous shape.

History

The Bengali script evolved from the Siddhaṃ script, which belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts. In addition to differences in how the letters are pronounced in the different languages, there are some typographical differences between the version of the script used for Assamese language and that used for Bengali language. For example: