yang are never used by Malays; instead of ini macham punya orang fikir, a Malay would say pada fikiran orang yang dmkian; and instead of apa yang banyak salah, a Malay would say ksalahan yang bsar; a Malay would probably say the whole sentence somewhat as follows:—Pada fikiran orang yang dmkian, ksalahan yang bsar tiada patut di-perbuat, dan kesalahan yarg sdikit boleh di-perbuat. The last clause "Apa punja bodoh satu fikiran ini?" is even more utterly foreign to Malay idiom. It will be noticed that in the above sentence as reconstructed in the Malay idiom, the passive form di-perbuat is used; the Malays of course make a great deal of use of this construction both in writing and in conversation, but the Babas hardly ever use it at all. Another peculiar of the Babas is that they almost always make the adjectival pronouns itu and ini, that and this, precede the noun which they qualify instead of following it, as it should be according to Malay idiom. Again the Babas use the verb "to be" quite differently from the Malay idiom; take such sentences as, "Ini ada btul salah;" "ini macham punya orang ada bodoh"—no Malay would ever use ada in such a connection at all. They also follow the English idiom of placing the verb "to be" at the end of a sentence, thus, "brapa chantek dia-orang ada," "how beautiful they are." Another Chinese idiom is the use of datang for "here" or "hither," as the Chinese use lâi, as, "knapa t'ada bawa dia datang?" and "Kalau lu jalan datang." Pernah is used in the sense "at some time," as opposed to ta'pernah, "never," in the same way that the Hok-kiens used bat and m̄-bat, as, "kuda yang sudah pernah tanggorg seksa," "a horse which has suffered at some time;" "kuda yang sudah pernah jatoh," " a horse which at some time has fallen;" these quotations are from the translation of "Black Beauty" by Mr. Goh Hood Keng, who speaks very little Chinese. The following may also be given as examples of phrases which are distinctly Chinese—"Di-piarakan sampai mnjadi orary," "taken care of until he grew up" = Chinese chiâⁿ-lâng; tengok rengan, instead of the Malay pandang mudah = khoàⁿ-khin; "orang yang kna dia pukol," "the man who was beaten by him" = hō͘ i phah.
The following list of words, though not by any means complete, will be useful for reference.
WORDS PECULIAR TO THE BABAS.
Being principally corruptions of Malay and Chinese words.
| Baba. | Chinese. | Malay. | English. |
| Ajat | ajak | to incite | |
| Amek | ambil | to fetch | |
| Baik | in good health | ||
| Balek | on the contrary | ||
| Bio | biō | temple |
