Malaysia will levy fines on those incorrectly using the national language, and will set up a specialized division to weed out offenders who mix Malay with English, news reports said Thursday.Beyond how amusing it is whenever governments try to regulate natural processes...isn't it a little late for all this? Dawn, care to weigh in?
Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Rais Yatim said fines of up to 1,000 ringgit ($271) can be imposed on displays with any wrong or mutated form of Malay, the Star newspaper reported.
The move was to ensure "the national language was not sidelined in any way," Rais said, according to The Star.
[...]
"It has to be admitted that a mixture of Bahasa Malaysia and English sometimes cannot be helped, but we hope these measures can arrest the decline," Rais said, according to The Star.
He said a national language unit will be set up in an attempt to reduce the English-Malay mix, especially at official functions.
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Malaysia says no to Manglish
Malaysia to levy fines for poor speech
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Hmm... amusing. I haven't heard of this, but then again, I hardly read the newspapers these days. In any case, you're more likely to find mutated forms of English than Malay around here :P
Back before our independence, when the school systems are still based on the colonial British system, the school syllabus is taught in English, which is why the older generation of Malaysians tend to speak better English. Then in the 70s or thereabouts, they shifted it to Malay/Bahasa Malaysia (BM), although they still retained English as a subject in schools as it's our second language, the shift to Malay caused the usage of English to drop drastically, except in the capital, and with it, the standard of English in Malaysia. Almost everyone speaks English around here, at highly varying levels of proficiency. Those with lower proficiency of English are the ones who most commonly resort to Manglish, as they call it. The government realized that the decline of good English-speakers has or will affect the globalization of the Malaysian economy, and in an effort to stop the downward slide of English, they have changed the syllabus in school a few years ago, and now, Math and Science is taught in English. At this point of time, it's hard to say if it'll work, although I doubt it'll make a big impact if the medium of communication among students/teachers/parents is in Malay or their mother tongue (Chinese or Indian dialects).
Not that I don't throw in the occasional 'lah' in my conversation - "I didn't knowlah... why didn't you tell me earlier?" or "Thank you lah" - but the degree of Manglish I speak depends on the person I'm speaking with. In any case, I only lapse into Manglish in a highly informal setting.
As for Malay, I can foresee problems if they start fining people for mutated displays of Malay. You see, there are two kinds of Malay spoken around here. The formal Malay, which is used in schools, businesses, government agencies and whatnot, and what we term as "bahasa pasar", which can be loosely translated as "market language". Bahasa pasar is a bastardized version of Malay that is widely spoken in everyday life, and uses some terms that are not acknowledge in formal Malay. In my opinion, there is more danger from the usage of bahasa pasar than Manglish.
For example, my BM is pretty decent - decent enough that I get mistaken as a Malay pretty regularly (just because my eyes aren't as almond-shaped as the rest of my Chinese brethren :P), but if you ask me to speak or write in a formal setting, I'd probably sound like a broken record, trying to get my mind to think and talk in formal BM after many, many years of not using it properly (not after I left school, in fact), since I use English or bahasa pasar most of the time. I'm not saying I can't do it, but it'll take some time to orient myself back to the proper words and phrases. Examples of formal vs. pasar BM: "Tidak ada"(don't have [something]) is shortened to "Takde", "Bilakah anda hendak pergi ke sekolah?" (When do you want to go to school?) to "Bila nak ke s'kolah?" "Siapakah itu?" (Who is that?) to "Siapa tu?" To most people, speaking formal Malay in everyday life is equivalent to using thees and thous English. Quite a bit of the Malay that's on TV soaps and dramas aren't formal anyway... although I suppose I'm not qualified to comment on this too much since I don't really watch Malay shows... or anything else on TV, for that matter (no time!)
In any case, I'm not sure how practical this ruling is. I suppose it all depends on the implementation, but I don't seriously think it'll be a big issue around here.
I'm kinda tired, so I'll stop here, but if you have any other questions/comments, I'll try to answer them. ^_^ *hugs*
Dawn
Thanks for that great explanation, Dawn!
I didn't think such a ruling would have an impact. It's like l'Academie Francaise trying to stop slang. They're all just fighting inevitability. Language is going to change, whether people like it or not.
The fact that there are two forms of Malay is intriguing. So are they going to go after people who speak bahasa pasar too? Good luck with that, guys.
Man, this has all made me want to get back into linguistics :>
Well, bahasa pasar uses mostly the same words as formal Malay, it's just that the most common terms are shortened or changed, and of course, you have the younger people who come up with slang terms, adopt expressions that they find on the radio/TV/magazines,etc... so it's not totally different, and if you learn Malay, you can probably understand most of it, although it would sound a little odd to you, I suppose. I think the problem with using slangs/bahasa pasar is that it normally makes the language involved sounds so rude, never mind if it's Malay, English, Cantonese, French, etc (you should hear the Cantonese I use with my sister... x_x quite shocking!), which is why the authorities tries to eradicate or curb it, but I highly doubt they can walk around with a meter and go, "That's not proper English/Malay/French, here's a $100 fine for you." It's just not practical, y'know?
Dawn
Not at all!
I imagine the only uses they could really fine would be in print or shop signs or things like that. Otherwise, they wouldn't even have proof.
http://haloscan.com/tb/yasmintanyl/113616644763774725
Btw, here's an article from a local filmmaker on our language. You should read her blog, I think. I've just discovered it myself, and I find it pretty fascinating. I found it while Googling for Sepet, one of her films that I just watched yesterday and totally fell in love with. I'll send you a copy too... you should see it. ^_^
Dawn
That link doesn't work...is this the blog?
http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/
Is this the article?
http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/2006/01/pure-malay.html
And here's a followup I found:
http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/2006/03/if-bahasa-came-from-urdu-bhasha.html
It's a good blog :) I'll subscribe :)
Yeah, that's the one! Good stuff. And Sepet's a pretty cool little movie. ^_^ Btw, glad you got the postcard!
Dawn
I definitely want to check it out :)
Thanks for sending the postcard!
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