DEWAN Bahasa dan Pustaka’s (DBP) recent spelling correction of a popular traditional South Indian food has irked netizens, especially Indians in the country.

DBP on their social media explained that the correct spelling for the Indian food made of rice flour in the Malay language is “tose”, instead of the commonly used spelling “tosai”.The word gained the attention of DBP after caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob was seen making tosai at an event in his constituency, Bera, ahead of Deepavali.

In his Facebook page, Ismail, in Bahasa Malaysia described the opportunity to prepare the food item and went on to spell it as “tosai”.

However, after DBP made the announcement, it did not sit well among some social media users, who hurled brickbats at the government body in charge of standardising the Malay language.

It is now a trending issue on social media.

On Instagram, a user with the handle @theroytravels questioned DBP of their reference on the issue.

“DBP, where is your reference from? Stop making up spelling or pronunciation of food that originated from other ethnicities as per your wish,” he said, replying to the DBP’s post of the Bahasa spelling.”

On Twitter, user @BigJoe470 asked why DBP is taking the trouble to change the common spelling that has been used for years.“Why take the trouble to create a new name when people have used another name for years? It is either thosai/tosai (commonly known in Southern India) or dosa (commonly known in Northern India),” he said.

He even asked why DBP ignored the conventional use of the word and came up with something that was only used by them. He questioned if DBP are considering changing the spelling of another popular traditional South Indian, Idli, to “Itlee”.“Why does DBP ignore the conventional usage & come up with something that no one uses except themselves in a Kamus? Plain lazy to ask around? After all, how many Indian restaurants use the word “Tose” to identify Tosai? What’s next? Itlee for the soft fluffy idli?,” he said.

Being an Indian traditional food, user @ashh_kzh said he prefers using, whatever, the Indians name it.

“I prefer to follow how Indians want to spell their traditional food,” he said.

Another user @SimpletonED said that there is no importance in words when it comes to food.“Thosai for breakfast, tosai for lunch, dosa for dinner and tose for supper. What’s in a name? Chill lah DBP,” he tweeted.

Although many expressed their dissatisfaction with DBP over their correction of the spelling, on Facebook, a user with the handle of “Cikgu Sanjay Vasanthanathan” explained that the spelling for the popular Indian breakfast has always been “tose”.

Citing the spelling, he said the pronunciation for Malay language and English are not the same.

“It’s been tose for so many years, did you just get to know?”

“The pronunciation in Malay and English is not the same. The closest Tamil pronunciation to Malay pronunciation is ‘tose’.”

“There are two ways to pronounce the alphabet ‘E’.

“So the ‘Se’ is said as ‘Sai’, the closest to Tamil pronunciation,” he said.

Sanjay claimed that there are 614 Tamil loanwords in Malay language and only 6% maintained the spelling and pronunciation. – October 19, 2022.