National language

Often you will hear people telling you that Bahasa Malaysia brings you no where, except Malaysia. It might be true, but think about it again, does not language has more to do than this?

For me, being fluent in my own national language might not bring me to else where but BM is portraying my identity when I'm out of the country or speak to foreigners. It is part of my identity as a Malaysian.

I took pride on my BM, although I have to admit that the fluency now is not as good as when I was in school.

I remember once I overheard an announcer from a Chinese radio station interviewing a foreign singer, and taught him the wrong BM. What a shame as a Malaysian.

The point here is that, it does not matter whether BM is widely used globally or not, but for sure when a foreigner ask about our national language, BM will have a vital role to play.

Having said that BM is important doesn't mean that we should neglect English. In fact, I think being a multiracial country, Malaysian should be multilingual too – with BM in the list.

When the government decided to switch back teaching medium from English to BM for Science and Mathematics in schools last year, like most concern Malaysians, I was upset and worried for our young generation.

Many argued both subjects should indeed be taught in English to meet the global demand, and others were saying that the country did not have good resources for the cause, hence, BM should be used.

For me, both arguments are right, but what is certain is that our children will not master any of these two languages if the government keeps on changing the medium used.

Both English and BM, for me are equally important. Of cause, if you are a Chinese like me, Mandarin should not be neglected too.

I was sent to national school since Year One, and BM has always been the medium in all core subjects, except English subject.

I remember my mother used to tell me that if I did not get an A for my BM, then I should be ashamed on myself. And of cause I did not get A all the times through out my 11 years in school, but I will make sure it remained not lower than B.

Although BM has always been my main language, but I did not forget two other important languages - English and Mandarin. As the result, today I'm a Malaysian who speaks three main languages – English, Mandarin and of cause BM.

Mastered in BM also brought me extra pocket money during my college years. I took up part time job teaching BM to students from Chinese schools.

And to my surprise, some Year Five and Six students were still confused on the usage of simple grammar rules in BM. For instance, many of my former students could not dif ferentiate when to use “me-” “mem-”, “meng-”, “be-”, “ber- ” and other “imbuhan” (affix).

The problem for this situation is that many of our young children were told or taught that BM is not a lingua-franca and will not help them in the future.

Hence, our young kids never bother to take BM seriously. For them, as long as they pass the subject in school, that is more than enough.

This kind of bad mentality should not be instill in our kids, BM is part of our identity as a Malaysian.

Take a look at our neighbour country, Thailand. Thai language is not widely used in the world too, but Thais took pride in their national language.

While improving our English, Malaysians should not forget to at least speak decent BM.
It does not matter if BM is one of the lingua-franca or not. As Malaysians, we should see it as part of our identity.