What is the English Language to Malaysia?
There are simply too many times living here in KL that I feel that "I cannot believe I am actually in Malaysia" moment. The familiarity of certain events and situations would make any Western expat feel that there simply is not anything foreign at all in that moment in time. Today, as I was sitting in the 16th floor of modern office building, shielded by comfy sofas and high-powered from the hustle and bustle of regular Chinatown activities a stone's throw away, I just entered another one of those "Malaysia feels so Western" moments.
I was sitting there to undertake a 3-hour written assessment as part of a job application process for a local Malaysian investment advisory firm. The test consisted of psychometric exams with SAT-style Reading, Math, and Vocabulary questions while the writing portion was specific to job description of Political Analyst, focusing on broad political economic issues, such as role of democracy, internet freedom, and regulations, in ways simply too reminiscent of the 3-hour final exams that we the grad students had to endure back in the LSE.
Of course, just as the test format was so Western, the language of the tests is undoubtedly English. Even the nice friendly Indian lady had a beautifully standard English accent in her English, all the way down to her pronunciation of "schedule" as "sh-e-jul." From the brief look at the office staff, looks like even the Malays, who usually lag in English proficiency, speak commandable English to one another. While it seems like introducing English to the company is a deliberate policy from the top, but either way, the "English-nization" effort here is achieving MUCH more a certain IT firm in Japan.
The prominence of the English language is Malaysia is perplexing considering that it holds absolutely no official or semi-official status in the country. Except for a few Western expats, none of the population speaks the language as a native language, and efforts by previous governments (especially under Mahathir) to introduce English education into regular school curriculum has been gradually reversed as the youth felt unable to keep up with the demands of learning a language proficiently enough to understand all its intricate scientific and literary terms.
Yet, despite most of people not being able to speak the language fluently, the English language is literally EVERYWHERE in the country, in both written and spoken form. Billboards are written in English, not just to be "cool" as in other Asian countries, but exclusively enough that even small-font fine print at the bottom of those boards are in English. Official forms are often bilingual, even ones that no foreigner will ever touch. Government ministers and businessmen frequent English radio broadcast in which they are fully expected to give commentary and answer questions in English.
Malaysians returning from abroad draws the ire of their stayed-at-home friends by showing their newly acquired foreign accents, who unsympathetically tell the returnee to speak "Malaysian English" with all its "-lah," "-mah"-enhanced glory. In any other part of Asia, the act of speaking English by itself, with any accent good or bad, is by itself a cause of ire, so much so that the returnee is almost forced to abandon their proud foreign language and quickly lose the ability to speak or write it. "Malaysian English," just like Chinese dialects or Tamil, is considered an equally recognized minority language.
In this sense, English in Malaysia is neither discriminated against or promoted by the government or any significant part of the general populace in particular. It exist simply because people somehow continue to use it in everyday vernacular, not because they specifically or intentionally want to acquire more of Western culture or business, or want to be perceived as more Western in lifestyle. It is just another facet of Malaysia's multiculturalism, sometimes a bit too overstressed because English happens to be more globally important than, say, Tamil or Hokkien.
But without native speakers, English in Malaysia is certain to die out. Its role as an inter-ethnic communication tool has become increasingly replaced by Malay as the number of non-Malay-speaking immigrants in the country (perhaps barring non-Tamils from India) continues to decline. Seeing a Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indian converse in Malay as a first instinct illustrates that the future of English in the country is rather bleak. It is our hope that greater exclusive use of English in businesses, as is the case for the company I interviewed today, may save English from dying out...
I was sitting there to undertake a 3-hour written assessment as part of a job application process for a local Malaysian investment advisory firm. The test consisted of psychometric exams with SAT-style Reading, Math, and Vocabulary questions while the writing portion was specific to job description of Political Analyst, focusing on broad political economic issues, such as role of democracy, internet freedom, and regulations, in ways simply too reminiscent of the 3-hour final exams that we the grad students had to endure back in the LSE.
Of course, just as the test format was so Western, the language of the tests is undoubtedly English. Even the nice friendly Indian lady had a beautifully standard English accent in her English, all the way down to her pronunciation of "schedule" as "sh-e-jul." From the brief look at the office staff, looks like even the Malays, who usually lag in English proficiency, speak commandable English to one another. While it seems like introducing English to the company is a deliberate policy from the top, but either way, the "English-nization" effort here is achieving MUCH more a certain IT firm in Japan.
The prominence of the English language is Malaysia is perplexing considering that it holds absolutely no official or semi-official status in the country. Except for a few Western expats, none of the population speaks the language as a native language, and efforts by previous governments (especially under Mahathir) to introduce English education into regular school curriculum has been gradually reversed as the youth felt unable to keep up with the demands of learning a language proficiently enough to understand all its intricate scientific and literary terms.
Yet, despite most of people not being able to speak the language fluently, the English language is literally EVERYWHERE in the country, in both written and spoken form. Billboards are written in English, not just to be "cool" as in other Asian countries, but exclusively enough that even small-font fine print at the bottom of those boards are in English. Official forms are often bilingual, even ones that no foreigner will ever touch. Government ministers and businessmen frequent English radio broadcast in which they are fully expected to give commentary and answer questions in English.
Malaysians returning from abroad draws the ire of their stayed-at-home friends by showing their newly acquired foreign accents, who unsympathetically tell the returnee to speak "Malaysian English" with all its "-lah," "-mah"-enhanced glory. In any other part of Asia, the act of speaking English by itself, with any accent good or bad, is by itself a cause of ire, so much so that the returnee is almost forced to abandon their proud foreign language and quickly lose the ability to speak or write it. "Malaysian English," just like Chinese dialects or Tamil, is considered an equally recognized minority language.
In this sense, English in Malaysia is neither discriminated against or promoted by the government or any significant part of the general populace in particular. It exist simply because people somehow continue to use it in everyday vernacular, not because they specifically or intentionally want to acquire more of Western culture or business, or want to be perceived as more Western in lifestyle. It is just another facet of Malaysia's multiculturalism, sometimes a bit too overstressed because English happens to be more globally important than, say, Tamil or Hokkien.
But without native speakers, English in Malaysia is certain to die out. Its role as an inter-ethnic communication tool has become increasingly replaced by Malay as the number of non-Malay-speaking immigrants in the country (perhaps barring non-Tamils from India) continues to decline. Seeing a Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indian converse in Malay as a first instinct illustrates that the future of English in the country is rather bleak. It is our hope that greater exclusive use of English in businesses, as is the case for the company I interviewed today, may save English from dying out...
One could argue that as the global lingua franca English is the language of least concern, at least as far as linguistic diversity preservation efforts are concerned. Due to the global standing of English and accelerating rate of cultural drift (cue internet), it is usually the case that local languages become marginalized or subsumed as local elites become "westernized" and start favoring non-native languages in daily communication. The linguistic dominance dynamic seems to be one of positive feedback - the globally "popular" languages are the ones most "worth" learning and/or adopting for that very reason.
ReplyDeleteTo draw an evolutionary parallel, the species with the most genetic diversity is usually the one that is the most widespread. And the most widespread species is the one that is the most successful at colonizing disparate ecological niches (due to its genetic diversity, of course). To belabor this point even further, consider en example of say tigers vs. rats. On an individual level, contending with a tiger is much more difficult than a rat. But wiping out all the tigers is relatively easy (we are nearly there), while wiping out the rats is goddamn impossible.
With that said, does Malay have a "firm leg to stand on" domestically? Or is it heading the way of many native African tongues to becoming the language of the underclass?
well, if anything, English is the dying language here in Malaysia. If you look at it from a global perspective, English is on the rise for all the reasons you mentioned, but precisely because English is so strong on the global level, that on the national level, there are efforts to curb the advance of English to preserve "national character." Malaysia is definitely not the only place that is happening. It is happening over all the world where English held at least a semi-official status in the recent past (in SE Asia, Philippines also comes to mind)
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