Soft Power for Language?

There are proposals to legislate many of the wishes of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), the body responsible for promoting the use of the Malay language in Malaysia.  This may go to the Cabinet for approval and become law soon.

We’re a nation caught between two or three language stools, and at least two are about to crash. Our standard of English, a language so critical to us in a competitive world, has been deteriorating. 

Source: https://id.wikipedia.org

Spoken and written English and overall education standard has dropped over the years. The standard of Bahasa Melayu, or Malay, is also moderate to poor. In the hands of social media users, much of it is pidgin Malay. A rotten hybrid of English and Malay indiscriminately used. Such usage tends to be almost exclusively among those whose command of English is poor. They may have taken many English words and Malayised them into neither English nor Malay. The order of infamy – gais, terrer, dungibap, kipidap, rekomen, eksiden, kazen, wasep, besday, eskrim, jem, rilek, kamon, femes, kol, kontek, ohsem, kondem.

You can figure out the original (ori) English words, but if you can’t, here they are: guys, terror, don’t give up, keep it up, recommend, accident, cousin, WhatsApp, birthday, ice-cream, jam, relax, come on, famous, call, contact, awesome, condemn.

Most of these words have perfectly good Malay equivalents – why terrer (for terror, colloquially meaning great) when hebat is an even nicer word? Yet these horrible words have become commonplace, especially amongst the young people. Older folks like me have less clue on the pidgin Malay. DBP, as the guardian of the language is concerned. But it must also ask why as a nation, we have failed so miserably here.

Many champions of the Malay language are happily pushing the language down people’s throats and counting it as a political victory. But some of these champions send their children overseas to enjoy benefits and privilege of languages they want to deny others.

If you’re a Malaysian and your Malay is poor, you should be a little embarrassed yourself. You may have made the effort to do what good citizens should do in a multicultural and multilingual society. You probably have tons of excuses on why the faults lie elsewhere, but you still should be concerned. DBP is coming up with major proposals in the name of safeguarding the dignity of Malay. If the proposals go through – and given the sensitive nature of it, nobody wants to be seen as against it – then we’ll see the DBP with expanded powers, workforce, budgets, associated business entities and bloated bureaucracy.

DBP’s proposals are based on French laws, but the use of such laws to justify enforcement powers makes no sense. The so-called Toubon law is a joke that does nothing except highlight the fear of the shrinking importance of French as a global language, especially at the hands of English. In many western European nations, even those with such a long and proud history such as Germany (and the various Viking kingdoms), you will find a majority of the population can speak English. Among the young, it’s close to 100%. If anybody has a reason to push back against English, it’s them (the Germans/Vikings). These are a people who’ve spent centuries warring against the English but are now pragmatic enough to know and do what’s good for their economic wellbeing.

Sodexho, a French company with half a million employees worldwide, has made English its official language. So, too, Airbus Industrie or Nissan, Rakuten etc, all from countries known to be super proud of their culture and heritage.

The English language has won hands down, doing so without any laws protecting it. This success, helped tremendously by the rise of English-speaking America as a world power. The result is that more people know Shakespeare and Mark Twain than literature of similar quality in China or India or other non-Anglo civilisations. That’s their loss!

Soft power, such as language (and the culture) help drive commerce and is often more powerful and lasting than the hard power of weapons and arms. You may hate America, but you are not going to give up Hollywood or Coca Cola. China knows that, and is working hard to expand its own soft power. So too India!

The DBP should learn how English won and became the most spoken language in the world, by the number of speakers who use it as either their first or second language. In Malaysia, English ranks second only to Malay. And we should try to emulate those who have succeeded, not those who have failed. So, it is best to pursue a two or three-language strategy, like the Scandinavian countries, and have Malaysians able to handle global trade and commerce for generations to come.

Reference:

Dewan Bahasa must learn the language of soft power, Adzhar Ibrahim, FMT, 15 April 2023