MY NATIONAL LANGUAGE

Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Melayu is my mother tongue, my first language. I was born and raised in Malaysia so Bahasa Melayu (BM) supposedly is our main language. Why did I say “supposedly”? It is because; Malaysia has three main races, Malay, Indian and Chinese. Obviously we have more than one main language. Chinese mainly speaks Mandarin/Hokkien, Indian speaks Tamil, and Malay will speak BM. Nevertheless, all races can speak BM because it is our NATIONAL language (FYI, not all can speak tamil or mandarin). However, Malaysia was once colonized by British back in 1940s, which kind of made an impact that English is a must know language in Malaysia, either written or verbally. Nowadays, you don’t need to worry about communication when you come to Malaysia because majority of us can speak English. Even if you go to the rural area, they also know at least the basics. So in other word, English is like our National language already, but it’s actually not. It saddens me.

The reason I’m writing is to express my disappointment towards some Malaysian mentality towards our National language. I don’t really mind what language you are speaking, the more the better I guess. As time goes by, BM somehow has been downgraded. I founded a tweet where the individual express her dissatisfaction how a mother talked fully English with her children then change it to BM when she talked to the individual because she/he is a sales promoter. He/she was hurt because she felt like the mother underestimated her intelligence, quote “I worked at retail but I have high education, stop underestimate us retail workers”. I was so dumbfounded. I never realize, you speaks your National language consider as DUMB. WHAT? It is just a language. A medium you use to communicate. Don’t you think the more language you master the more brilliant you are? You can speak English and BM, that’s awesome. How is it DUMB??

I admit, I am better in English than BM myself, and I am ashamed when I actually need help from my friends to write a formal letter in BM. It is my mother tongue! I don’t really mind if a Malaysian can speak more than 1 language, but I do care if they can’t speak BM. I mean some foreigners migrant here already think they don’t need to learn BM because they know we speak English. That’s quite disrespectful, isn't it?. It’s not fair. You are living in our country, try speak our language too. You migrant to US or UK, you’ll immediately learn English right? Our language is as special as any other language as well. At least learn the basics. However if Malaysian themselves feel ‘WEIRD’ or ‘UNCOOL’ if they speak in BM… sigh … I don’t know what to say.

Then, who will respect and honour the country’s National Language if not their people?

FYI, nowadays foreigners speak better BM than any of us Malaysian and they even enjoy it more communicate with us in BM instead of English. I’m happy that foreigners slowly adapting our language, but sad that Malaysian is slowly forgetting it. As for me, I’m in the midst of re-learning it too ^^ along with Mandarin and Japanese. I hope I can master these languages soon :)

Let me teach you guys some of BM:
Hi= salam sejahtera
How are you?= apa khabar?
I'm fine= saya baik-baik sahaja.
Thank you= Terima Kasih
You're welcome= sama-sama
I love you= Saya suka/cinta kamu.
English= Bahasa Inggeris
Good luck= semoga berjaya

That's all. If you want to learn more, just tell me. I'd be glad to teach BM to anyone, or should I say to learn it together... :)

Love,
Zatykhan

P/s: To all readers, you may correct any mistake in writing, or suggest anything you think should change. It’ll be an honour. Since I do wish to improve my writing day by day ^_^. THANK YOU!