LETTER | Brickbats and accolades have met Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s announcement to promote Malaysia’s national language, Bahasa Malaysia, internationally.

Firstly, no one is disputing the fact that Malaysians do hold their national language in high esteem. But the problem is, there is widespread confusion as to what is that national language.

Some politicians and media keep stating that it is Bahasa Melayu. But the more uniting and inclusive thinkers believe that our national language is Bahasa Malaysia.

We need to resolve this label first in our backyard before we start promoting the language globally.

Secondly, as has been pointed out by netizens via social media and news media, the PM’s ambition to table a resolution at Asean to change the article that proclaims English as the common language of the region will cause much suspicion among member nations who uphold the mantra of non-interference so far.

Member nations will and rightly so question why not their respective nation’s national language. Maybe some may even postulate that since their country has double the population size compared to Malaysia, should not their national language be the common Asean language.

Hence Malaysia is entering troubled waters with its nationalistic proclamation of wanting to make Malaysia’s national language the medium of communication at Asean events.

Thirdly, in an age and time where communication technology is racing ahead using the English Language as the preferred and popular medium of information, infotainment and edutainment, what would be the incentive for the world to take painstaking interest in a language from a third world nation that has a mere 32 million population?

Let us get real. While nationalistic sentiments do count in uniting a multiracial country like ours, selling the story of gloated pride globally will only fall flat if not backfire.

Fourthly, the fundamental fulcrum that balances human communication is the ability to speak in order to be understood with clarity and ease. The need to translate before comprehension is attained is only born out of acute necessity.

Therefore, while we may gloat at the idea that we are introducing our national language at international platforms where English is the long-established norm, are we not compounding our intentions to be understood clearly, with ease and correctly?

Considering the four reasons above, perhaps the government would be wiser to take a more difficult but sensible pathway to promote Bahasa Malaysia globally.

It must be a national policy and not a preferential choice of a prime minister or a political party to promote Bahasa Malaysia globally.

Otherwise, each time we change prime ministers or have a political party that forms an in-coming government, we would have confused the international communities with our flip flop changes.

It takes time to build

Invest in information technologies and communication mediums that make Bahasa Malaysia attractively widespread on the information, infotainment and edutainment highways.

Create games, story-telling; promote novelty arts and crafts; spellbinding performing arts and shows etc in Bahasa Malaysia that can gain traction in the world.

In other words, make the language an experiential attraction that gains popular buy-ins. This is a long haul.

Language popularity is not imposed, enforced or stubbornly bulldozed. It takes time and investments to build.

And of course, to promote a language globally a government must be prepared to work with educational institutions to introduce the language as a curriculum.

This is possible only when the educational sectors recognise the consistency, longevity and richness of a language.

Hence, back in our own yard, we must first and foremost raise the Bahasa Malaysia quality and content.

From our past experiences, we know that we are not adequate in this aspect.

Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka must be empowered with budgets and capable human capital to enrich and strengthen the language in order to attain a standard that can be well recognised by educational institutes globally.

Hopefully, our leaders will think through more exhaustively and citizens will rationalise deeply before we go bananas over such announcements of making our national language the lingua franca of the world.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.