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<h1 class="entry-title">Who’s really killing the Malay language?</h1>
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<div class="gmail-td-post-author-name"> <a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/author/tajuddin/">Tajuddin Rasdi</a><div class="gmail-td-author-line"> - </div> </div> <span class="gmail-td-post-date gmail-td-post-date-no-dot">September 29, 2018 7:00 AM</span> </div>
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</div></div><p><img class="gmail-size-full gmail-wp-image-967333 gmail-alignleft gmail-td-animation-stack-type0-2" src="https://s3media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/tajuddin-rasdi-column-300x4001.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="400">Once
again, the Malay language is in the spotlight. Once again, DAP has been
labelled as the culprit in killing its honour and prestige. Once again,
I have to sit in front of my computer, typing out an article to explain
what seems to be obvious and pointing to the real killer in this
mystery murder of the Malay language. The answer? The majority of our
public universities.</p>
<p>First, let’s put things into proper perspective. When we gained
independence, it was decided, I think, that Malay would be the official
language of administration. It was also supposed to be the language of
knowledge. If memory serves, the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka was set up to
develop Malay as the latter. This was further strengthened by the
establishment of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), to spearhead
research and development to enrich the language. This was to continue
the work of Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM) to help Malays become
technicians and professionals under the New Economic Policy.</p>
<p>I don’t think that ITM was instructed at the time to use the Malay
language, but obviously with that many Malay students, both languages
were probably used. At UKM, lecturers were instructed to deliver their
lectures in Malay. When I became a lecturer at a public university in
Johor, I too was told to give all my notes and lectures in Malay. Thus,
in the 1980s, things were looking up for the language. What happened?</p>
<p>In the 1990s, three phrases entered the picture:
internationalism, world class, and university rankings. These three
turned the tables on Malay as the official language, and it essentially
became a form of Bahasa Kampung in university circles. Suddenly,
instructions came from the top leadership of universities for all
lecturers to deliver their material in English. Journal papers in Scopus
journals that were written in English were given almost twice the marks
for promotion. Those who wrote for local academic journals in Malay
could kiss their promotions good-bye.</p><div class="gmail-code-block gmail-code-block-5 gmail-ai-viewport-1 gmail-ai-viewport-2" style="margin:8px auto;text-align:center;clear:both">
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<p>Let me be frank, though: the level of English at public universities
was only so-so, and I had 27 years of experience in reading student
assignments, vetting exam questions, and evaluating conference and
journal papers as well as dissertations and theses of PhD and masters
students. But writing Malay books for the Dewan Bahasa no longer held
any appeal for academics. Everything was about English Scopus journal
articles. I once invited colleagues to write book chapters in Malay so
that I could open the minds of the Malays. No go. No quality. Tak ada
class. These were the responses.</p>
<p>The great surprise with respect to the issue of “memartabatkan Bahasa
Melayu” came when I was invited to evaluate a student’s master’s thesis
at UiTM. After reading the thesis, which was written in not-so-good
English, I passed the report because I could understand the research
content.</p>
<p>On the day of the viva, I asked the chairman and the supervisor why
the student had not written in her native Malay tongue. At UiTM, some
more. Both the academics said it was UiTM policy for all postgraduate
theses to be in English. At the university I worked for then, students
had a choice. If you were a Malaysian, you had better have a good reason
to write in English, or else… But at UiTM, writing in English was
required. No two ways about it.</p>
<p>I also found out that the instruction at UiTM was to deliver all
lectures at the diploma and degree levels in English, regardless of
whether Malay students found it difficult or not. The rationale? To
“force English fluency”.</p>
<p>I called this the “Mahathirian English logic”. It was Dr Mahathir
Mohamad who, at the turn of the 21st century, made the decision to
change the medium of teaching for maths and science to English. This
project eventually failed for many reasons. Desire and logic alone was
not enough to inspire teachers who had been brought up in Malay, or the
students who were struggling to understand their teachers’ broken
English.</p>
<p>There is now a movement to return the medium of instruction for maths
and science to English. One of the proponents is the newly elected
National Education Advisory Council (MPPK). So who do you think is
killing off the Malay language? Isn’t it obvious yet?</p>
<p>The architecture department at the public university where I once
worked had its department meeting minuted in English after we answered
the call of “internationalism” and hired foreign lecturers. What
happened to Malay as the official language of administration? It went
down the drain because of “communicability” issues. It’s obvious that
the architecture department was not out to screw with the Malay
language; how else were we to operate on the so-called “international”
stage?</p>
<p>Now, let’s analyse what happened in Johor, as well as the famous Lim
Guan Eng press statement issue. In both cases, the politicians honoured
Malay by having the press statement and letter to Johor residents issued
in the language. Their subsequent statements and letter were issued in
English and Chinese. In Lim’s case, he was targeting the Chinese news
media, and in the case of the Johor politician, he was targeting mainly
Chinese residents of non-English or Malay education backgrounds.</p>
<p>In my opinion, both of them honoured Malay as the official language
and only used the other two languages for the purposes of
“communicability”. I was extremely sad to see two such hardworking
politicians labelled as “killers of Bahasa Melayu”.</p>
<p>To me, public universities are the real killers because of their
ludicrous promotion criteria, desire for rankings, ignorance of
internationalisation and even greater ignorance of the term “world
class”. According to Prof Sham Sani of UKM, being international and
world class has nothing to do with language. If a university produces
academic content of value to share with the world, then that university
is international and world class. Speak all the English you want; no one
will listen if you do not have important findings to report.</p>
<p>In closing, consider the following acronyms, PAM and Umno. PAM stands
for Pertubuhan Arkitek Malaysia while Umno stands for the United Malay
National Organisation. PAM organises almost all of its events and
publications in English. I hardly remember a single event in Malay.
However, its professional magazine was once called Majalah Arkitek. The
articles were all in English, with very few in Malay.</p>
<p>Now Umno, our favourite political party whose members keep calling
themselves the warriors of the Malay language, also has many events and
publications in Malay. So there you have it, in Malaysia. PAM is
Pertubuhan Arkitek Malaysia which operates almost exclusively in
English, and Umno is a Malay-based political party with an English name
which conducts its activities in Malay.</p>
<p>There is a perfect Malay word to describe our policy on Malay as the
official language and language of knowledge: “cacamarba”, which means
confused and chaotic.</p>
<p><em>Tajuddin Rasdi is a professor of Islamic architecture at UCSI University.</em></p></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>