Economy or Language?

The Prime Minister’s desire to make Bahasa Malaysia as the lingua franca of ASEAN took a nosedive with Indonesia’s Education, Culture, Research and Technology Minister Nadiem Makarim (April 5) suggesting Bahasa Indonesia instead.

Also, the former CEO of Go-Jek backed his claims as to why Bahasa Indonesia merit to be the superior choice. Through his assessment, Nadiem said the reach of the Indonesian language extends to 47 countries around the world.

Source: https://m.facebook.com

Bahasa Indonesia for Foreign Speakers or Bahasa Indonesia Untuk Penutur Asing (BIPA) has been offered by 428 institutions, both facilitated by his Ministry’s Language Development and Development Agency as well as those conducted independently by BIPA activists, governments and institutions around the world.

If you have economic dominance, people will crawl – if they need to – to master your language. That’s why English is dominant and maybe Mandarin is useful as well.

The former International Trade and Industry Minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz argued that the focus on “dignifying” Bahasa Melayu is a backward move that does not help Malaysians to progress in today’s modern world. It is not just language but rather what you express and communicate that is important according to her.

Malaysia was once a breeding ground for non-native English speakers on par with India.

The so-called push for Bahasa Malaysia’s supremacy poses several setbacks given that the Government has overlooked the strengthening of Malaysia’s economic resurgence after Covid-19.

Malaysia tends to have ideas such as how more young people could take up trishaw trade in Kelantan while the world has moved on to AI, digital and other new technologies. Even if trishaws are battery or solar-powered it is not something graduates would like to do. The Kelantan state government has offered to provide free trishaw repair services. How exciting?

Reference:

Prosper the Malaysian economy first and Bahasa Malaysia will blossom naturally, Cheah Chor Sooi, Focus Malaysia, 6 April 2022