Prior to the holidays, NST reported on Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Director General, Dr Hazami Jahari with a provocative headline, "Malaysia's a strange country, people are reluctant to use the national language, says DBP chief".
The hesitation of Malaysians to prioritise and elevate the national language is a perplexing issue, said Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) director-general Dr Hazami Jahari.
He said the situation clearly reflects a colonised mindset and a lack of confidence in Bahasa Melayu, perceived as lacking economic value, standardisation, and quality, Berita Harian reported.
He said this mentality contrasts with the attitudes of developed nations such as France, China, Japan, and Thailand. Even regional neighbours like Indonesia take immense pride in their national language.
The remark from the COO of a government agency, that was established in 1956 as Balai Pustaka to coordinate, promote and elevate the national language, smacks of passing blame to the public.
If the national language failed to instill a sense of pride and attitude as per the French, Chinese, Thai and Indonesian of their languages, three fingers will point back to DBP and shoulder part of the blame for the failure?
However, that view is not only the personal opinion of Dr Hazami. He was echoing a similar view of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who lambasted elites viewing "success and intelligence can only be achieved through mastery of English".
Arts and Lterature
Anwar have been supportive and acknowledge DBP's initiatives with a RM50 million allocation for arts, culture, language and literature for 2025 budget.
As an eloquent speaker in the Malay language, who makes extra effort to popularise obscure words and introduce new terms, Anwar have been supportive of DBP to attend theater and cultural events at DBP.
This is an opportunity for DBP to make their mark under a Prime Minister whose a literary and language enthusiast.
Upon the passing of the Ordinan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka 1959 after independence, Balai Pustaka became DBP and was empowered "to form policies regarding the Malay language, responsible to spread the language and is able to go into book publishing business."
Publishing can be considered a core business and source of funding for DBP to publish literary and academic works in the national language.
The RM50 million budget certainly help in their effort to translate Malay works into foreign language and foreign work into Malay in which Anwar recently announced the translation of Turkeministan poet into Malay.
DBP strategic direction
However, in the age free e-books, DBP may need to explore offering electronic devices for reading and making milestone literary work readily available online. Naturally, DBP's business model which include distribution aspect need a rethinking.
In October, Dr Hazami presented a paper on the new language strategic plan through generating creative industry economy based on language, heightened the use of digital infrastructure, and adoption of artificial intelligence.
Conceptually, it is language as a commodity to be developed into product to generate revenue. Presumably, there is a market and commercial value. Indirectly it helps promote the use of language via creative, commercial and social media works.
The business plan will have to undertake a market study. But it certainly begs a discussion on DBP's role in policymaking and popularising usage 9f the national.
National language
Recently Tun Dr Mahathir created controversy over the Chinese only commercial signboard. Apparently it is at Chinese nationals-owned premises but it highlighted inadequacy of DBP to enforce the compulsory use of Malay signboards since it is not the main priority of local council to enforce language requirement.
However, is it necessary for DBP to play the role of language policing?
More thoughts need to be put to reflect on the status, usage and use of Malay as a national language, and DBP's role. National language tend to be seen as official language for government matters or linked to de facto or de jure of a nation.
While Malay is the communication language used by the Malay community and between races, it is not widely used by big companies and corporations. By virtue of the need to link internationally and not being a commercially dominant nation, Government-linked companies and its public listed vehicles used English.
In the retail sector that is mostly Chinese dominated, Chinese is also used along with Malay and specks of Indian and other languages. The reality bites that the language used in commerce tend to be dictated by the ethnicity and the need to communicate beyond strictly Malays and Malaysians.
Perhaps, DBP need to look into the discipline of communications in which there exist three tiers in which Tier 1 tend to be the language level and communication platform of the elite and higher social echelon, Tier 2 for middle echelon and Tier 3 is lowest echelon and masses.
By pursuing literary work, DBP run the risk of empowering Malay to the elite and limited few of about 5% of the population. How about the rest of the 95% which include non-Malays and foreigners.
German linguist, C.M.B. Brann defined national language into 4 meanings as territorial language, regional language, language-in-common or community language and central language or official language.
Malay language is closely associated with culture, and etiquette thus get translated into the national psyche. The national language use in the four levels of communications; namely cliche, factual, opinion and emotive feel, determine the success or failure of the national language as communication medium of the nation.
Whether it is in spoken or written or even smart phone lingo, correct use of the national language need be promoted by DBP. In other words, it can be translated as the success and failure of DBP after 69 year in existence.
Internationalisation
The challenge for Malaysia is not limited to mastering the national language but also foreign languages.
At one time, knowledge of Japanese was necessary to be more effective in business dealings with Japanese. Today it is Mandarin and many other countries are raising their competency in the language.
Malaysian need to be multi-lingual to have the competitive advantage as a nation. Ideally, Malaysians should master the national language, English, a European language, an Asian language, and for Muslims, Arabic.
It means the role played by education is important. Perhaps, DBP should play a more prominent role in the syllabus and teaching of national language in schools and tertiary institutions.
If external factor is what needed to encourage use and elevate the use of the national language, so be it. DBP could emulate the role of British Council in their promotion of knowledge on the United Kingdom and English language together with its diplomacy role.
A short, medium and long term plan need to be put in place as a guide to ensure there is an on-going effort and the enthusiasm is not left to the back burner when Prime Ministers come and go.
No comments:
Post a Comment