**Pardon for the delay in this particular post. I was tired the other day and didn’t manage to cough up straight my arguments. Hence, I’m now continuing with the post.**
Source: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3709630
By Agence France-Presse, Updated: 11/18/2009
Malaysian minister says English at work 'weird': report
Malaysia's deputy education minister has said that speaking English in the workplace is "weird" and harmful to the nation's culture and identity, a report said Wednesday.
Mohd Puad Zarkashi said employees in the private sector used English 99 percent of the time and should switch to Bahasa Malaysia in order to show pride in the national language, the New Straits Times reported.
"This also occurs in government-linked companies where we have this weird culture of people speaking to each other in English instead of the national language," he said at the launch of a linguistics seminar.
"We are polluting our own culture and identity as a nation," he said.
"It would be difficult to strengthen the position of Bahasa Malaysia if this culture continued," he added, urging Malaysians to emulate the French, Japanese and Koreans, who stuck to their own language.
The New Straits Times said Mohd Puad also criticised young people for using a mix of English and Bahasa Malaysia in SMS text messages and on the Internet.
He called on the nation's leaders to use Bahasa Malaysia for all meetings and events and said that when he receives letters in English he returns them and asks for them to be written in the national language.
English is widely spoken in Malaysia, a multicultural nation where the population is dominated by Muslim Malays but also includes large ethnic Chinese and Indian populations.
Many Malaysians speak several languages including English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Chinese and Indian dialects.
Honestly, this is a statement that was made by someone who has no proper understanding of the negative effects that it will create. Yes, I do agree with him that it is frustrating that we as Malaysians are not promoting our national languages. However, to compare our language with the other countries that he mentioned are totally wrong when this fact settles in: Japan and France are in Top 10 of global economic ranking (ranked according to GDP (Gross Domestic Product)) while the Republic of Korea ranked 15th. (Note: the link that I gave was directed from the World Bank). Hence, they have a bargaining power not to speak English as everyone would want to trade with them as they are a very big market.
Hence, our economy is not that big enough to warrant international recognition that we are a global economic power. When that happens, they wouldn’t want to take the opportunity to learn our language. To global exporters or businessmen, our country’s economy are just a small piece of the economic pie. Hell, a USD 5 trillion economy (Japan) is much more attractive than a USD 200 billion economy like Malaysia.
In fact, many countries likes to set up businesses within our country because we know English. In recent years, Malaysia has become a hub for shared services because our work force can speak fluent English. As such, large MNCs who have operations in a global scale would like to set up a shared service centre here in Malaysia. These MNCs have provided us with large employment opportunity and helps in generating our country’s economy.
That’s all I have to say at the moment on that particular subject. As usual, any comments would be appreciated.
2 Comments:
well, to me, no other language is more important than English. If you can't speak proper English, you can consider yourself sort of doomed. lolz!
this reminds me of my days back in kelantan. i was called, no nick-named, Mr England, simply because i insists on speaking english. and when i was practicing my english with a classmate in the bus mini, some malay boy remarked, "Bau Budu la !!!". hahaha!!!
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