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Post by helen on Apr 12, 2009 5:01:56 GMT -5
www.lib.nus.edu.sg/lebao/index.htmlLat Pau, the longest running Chinese daily during pre-War Singapore, was started by Mr See Ewe Lay in December 1881 and lasted 52 years before it finally ceased in March 1932. Lat Pau is an invaluable historical source for research into pre-war Singapore as well as Chinese overseas during that period. Unfortunately the earliest issues of the newspaper were lost and now the issues extant at the NUS Chinese Library cover only the period August 19 1887 to March 31 1932.
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Post by laohuaqiao on Apr 13, 2009 10:18:40 GMT -5
I think it's amazing that copies of the newspaper still exist going that far back.
I looked up the origin of the Singapore newspaper Lat Pau's name 叻报. One explanation is Lat comes from the old name for the Singapore dollar, selat 实叻 which is Malay word for "strait".
叻 which is Cantonese phonetic translation for lat is a commonly used Cantonese word, meaning intelligent or capable. I think it's also cute that 叻 is a presumably intentional play on the middle word of the Chinese name for Singapore 新加坡, 加 ga in Cantonese. 叻 and 加 are written with the two radicals juxtaposed.
Perhaps others from Malaysia/Singapore can comment on this.
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