S Thayaparan
Published: Sep 29, 2025 7:00 AM
Updated: Sep 30, 2025 2:46 PM
“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.”
COMMENT | Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris lecturer Azizah Zain expressed worry over “the growing trend of urban pupils using English as their main spoken language”, as it "could undermine Malay’s position as the national language," the press reported.
I assume the associate professor is including Malay pupils here and not just the non-Malays.
Azizah pointed out that the Malay language is “a vessel of national identity” (wadah jati diri bangsa kita).
“Children who grow up more comfortable in English may lose touch with the values and cultural nuances embedded in the Malay language,” the academic reportedly said.
What values and nuances are embedded in the Malay language? More importantly, what values of the English language, if there are any, are at odds with the values of the Malay language?
I can understand how some folk would be afraid of the kind of ideas children would be exposed to if they understand English, and how this would undermine the social order imposed by the ruling elites.
Azizah cautioned that children proficient in English would become “increasingly alienated from the Malay language and culture”.
Published: Sep 29, 2025 7:00 AM
Updated: Sep 30, 2025 2:46 PM
“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.”
- Rumi, 13th century poet
COMMENT | Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris lecturer Azizah Zain expressed worry over “the growing trend of urban pupils using English as their main spoken language”, as it "could undermine Malay’s position as the national language," the press reported.
I assume the associate professor is including Malay pupils here and not just the non-Malays.
Azizah pointed out that the Malay language is “a vessel of national identity” (wadah jati diri bangsa kita).
“Children who grow up more comfortable in English may lose touch with the values and cultural nuances embedded in the Malay language,” the academic reportedly said.
What values and nuances are embedded in the Malay language? More importantly, what values of the English language, if there are any, are at odds with the values of the Malay language?
I can understand how some folk would be afraid of the kind of ideas children would be exposed to if they understand English, and how this would undermine the social order imposed by the ruling elites.
Azizah cautioned that children proficient in English would become “increasingly alienated from the Malay language and culture”.
The associate professor encouraged parents to support their children to “think in the language”. Would non-Malay parents also have to remind their children that there are some words they cannot use?
Remember in 2023 when an immigration officer berated a woman for supposedly not speaking in Bahasa Malaysia when renewing her passport?
In response, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail urged all not to view it from one perspective, saying that it is a citizen’s duty to have command of the language while living in this country.
“If you can't (understand the national language), it can lead to suspicion, for example - are you really a citizen since you can't even speak the language?” he asked.
Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail
All of this seems rather strange. The fact is that language has never been a unifying factor.
Divided Malays
The foundational principle of Malay uber alles politics is that the Malays are divided. Everyone from former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to various politicians has always claimed that the reason why the Malay race is in trouble is because they are not united.
Every Malay politician wants to unite the Malays against what they perceive and propagandise as communities, ideas and threats to their race.
This has been the guiding principle post May 1969. And yet the Malays are not unified or at least broken up into various feudalistic pacts and political conveniences, even though they all speak the same language - regional patois aside - and supposedly share the same values embedded in the language.
The upper echelons of civil service are dominated by people who determinedly expose their offspring to English-medium educational establishments and live lives far removed from the hoi polloi whom they defend race, religion and language for, yet there is disunity in the community.
All of this seems rather strange. The fact is that language has never been a unifying factor.
Divided Malays
The foundational principle of Malay uber alles politics is that the Malays are divided. Everyone from former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to various politicians has always claimed that the reason why the Malay race is in trouble is because they are not united.
Every Malay politician wants to unite the Malays against what they perceive and propagandise as communities, ideas and threats to their race.
This has been the guiding principle post May 1969. And yet the Malays are not unified or at least broken up into various feudalistic pacts and political conveniences, even though they all speak the same language - regional patois aside - and supposedly share the same values embedded in the language.
The upper echelons of civil service are dominated by people who determinedly expose their offspring to English-medium educational establishments and live lives far removed from the hoi polloi whom they defend race, religion and language for, yet there is disunity in the community.
Thinking in Malay
Malays who have been accused of betraying their race, culture and religion, because of the ideas and discussions they sought to generate, were all thinking in Malay.
Malays who do not subscribe to ideas of racial and religious supremacy were thinking in Malay.
Malays who questioned the 3Rs (race, religion and royalty) and found themselves under investigation from the state or facing sedition charges were thinking in Malay.
Mind you, these people are a minority, or at least it seems this way because of the way the state and religious authorities attempt to maintain strict control over how the majority thinks and speaks.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang earlier this year lamented that the Malay language was being sidelined in favour of English.
“What is happening today is chaotic, in the shops in the city, the capital, all kinds of languages are spoken, (the use of) the Malay language is sometimes only ‘halus’ (minimal), while English is prominent (even though the English people are no longer around),” he said.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
Preacher Zakir Naik also spoke in English during his talk “Quran and Modern Science - compatible or incompatible?” at the Perlis Sunnah Convention in January.
Now I do not know why Zakir, who is from India, spoke in English and not Malay. If people bemoan the lack of BM usage, surely at such a prestigious event with a world-renowned speaker, there should have been some effort to promote the national language.
After all, English speakers are accused of not understanding Malay sensitivities, but then how does someone like Zakir, a non-Malaysian, who speaks at these events attended predominantly by Malay language speakers, manage to convey his ideas about the religion of the state without offending anyone?
English medium in school learning
In 2002, when the old maverick decided it was time for Maths and Science to be taught in English across schools in different stages, the opposition was throwing up roadblocks.
So politically opportunistic were the protestations that Hadi, who was then the Terengganu menteri besar, issued a statement expressing “full support” for Dong Jiao Zong and the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall “in their effort to uphold the use of the mother tongue in the teaching of Science and Maths in Chinese primary schools”.
Preacher Zakir Naik also spoke in English during his talk “Quran and Modern Science - compatible or incompatible?” at the Perlis Sunnah Convention in January.
Now I do not know why Zakir, who is from India, spoke in English and not Malay. If people bemoan the lack of BM usage, surely at such a prestigious event with a world-renowned speaker, there should have been some effort to promote the national language.
After all, English speakers are accused of not understanding Malay sensitivities, but then how does someone like Zakir, a non-Malaysian, who speaks at these events attended predominantly by Malay language speakers, manage to convey his ideas about the religion of the state without offending anyone?
English medium in school learning
In 2002, when the old maverick decided it was time for Maths and Science to be taught in English across schools in different stages, the opposition was throwing up roadblocks.
So politically opportunistic were the protestations that Hadi, who was then the Terengganu menteri besar, issued a statement expressing “full support” for Dong Jiao Zong and the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall “in their effort to uphold the use of the mother tongue in the teaching of Science and Maths in Chinese primary schools”.
What binds groups of people are ideas, and while a common language makes it easier to transmit those ideas, the reality is that adherence to something like the Rukun Negara and especially its preamble has far greater utilitarian value than anything a hegemonic adherence to language can achieve.
I will let English novelist George Orwell have the last word - “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
S THAYAPARAN is commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
***
Why Dong Jiao Zong had "... uphold the use of the mother tongue in the teaching of Science and Maths in Chinese primary schools", IMHO, was because the Chinese suspected the Grand Old Man of wanting to 'sabo' the vernacular schools in their excellent teaching of maths and science, by switching to English from Mandarin. They opined, rightly or wrongly, he was jealous of the exceptional performance of the vernacular schools in those subjects.
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