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malaygirlfrenchrobot:

Excuse me. Just because you’re married to a foreigner and most probably don’t speak Malay to your kids at home (since you couldn’t even force yourself to speak the language at a Malay event and yet have the cheek to be selling your wife’s culture instead - first hand experience might I add), it doesn’t mean that the rest of us would be so stupid as to be so contradicting to our kids. Forgive me if the former sentence sounds like a personal attack but when you suggest as such towards Bahasa Melayu, my  bahasa ibunda which is also my national language, it counts as a personal attack to me, the patriotism provoked. 

First of all, how can the national language be a foreign language? Doesn’t it seem strange that countrymen sing their national anthem in a language that is classified as foreign?

Already, we’re possibly the only country where the national language is not spoken by every citizen but mostly the Malays as our mother tongue (we’re not talking first generation immigrants anymore here). Where non Malay speaking people embarrass themselves and the state when singing the national anthem. It’s always a joke when the anthem is sung. Why is that? Tak kenal maka tak cinta, the mat rock will tell you yo. How much further do you want to go by degrading the status of the Malay language in our country?

I have friends from all over the world. All of them speak their national language - be it an Iraqi born in Sweden or a Tunisian in France, or Chinese in Malaysia etc. It doesn’t matter which ethnic group you’re from, you speak the language of the country; apart from your mother tongue. The best part is they speak English well too. Even the French people I might add. The younger French generations are speaking English. Doubt they’d be one of the fastest growing expat community in Singapore otherwise.

If any language should be foreign in Singapore, it would be everything else but Malay I feel. This is Malay soil, is it not? We are the natives, the indigenous people,are we not? I admit my Malay, written and spoken, is not as great as it used to be while I was in school. But I still speak it well. I may not use it everyday but I still speak it. Some jokes are just better in Malay anyway. This I have my parents to thank for, especially my father for his tough love. If you’re Malay, especially if you’re a public figure, and you have to appear on radio or TV for a Malay programme, you better make sure you speak Malay. Don’t embarrass me or worse, embarrass youself. It’s alright if you don’t speak well, but you have to make the effort, you have to force yourself, people will respect you for that. Don’t be like these supposedly important Malay figures who don’t even bother! Biar merangkak-rangkak, jangan lupa daratan. No matter how educated you will become, how far you go, you are Malay. If you are proud of your heritage, you will never lose everything else that comes with it. Perhaps the Minister could’ve used someone like my Dad while growing up. He wouldn’t have come up with such an audacity.

Even if his “suggestion of teaching Malay as a foreign language was directed toward students who came from entirely English speaking homes, for example, homes where both parents have worked overseas for an extended period of time”, it is not the language itself that should be punished by classification. The problem stems from parents; the education, or the lack thereof, given unto their children. If the mother tongue language is not taken seriously by the parents to educate to their children, what makes you think it’d be taken seriously as a foreign language. 

I recently made acquaintance online with a Singaporean Malay lady who married a German guy and has lived in Germany since. She told me she made her kids speak only Malay over the weekends so that they practice the language. Her eldest son is grown up now and would soon return to Singapore, apparently by his own choice, to serve his National Service. So please, as you can see Minister, being far away in a foreign land is not an excuse; for anything, for that matter, if the proper education was given and a sense of identity and belonging nurtured. Nak seribu daya, tak nak seribu dalih.

I don’t think it’s solely the responsibility of the teachers in school but parents at home too. While I was in school, I spoke English to my mother and Malay to my father. And I still do the same today. My mother bought me English story books. My dad had a collection of Malay novels, poetry and proses. Did help that when my parents spoke in Malay to each other, it really felt like you’re in an 80s sandiwara =p And I was always among the top for languages. 

Though I don’t speak it every day now, Malay doesn’t feel foreign to me and I will never see it as foreign because of the education given to me. Neither will I have my kids see it as foreign, just as French will not be foreign to them. They will have 2 mother tongues and English. If they can pick up more, good for them. If ever they tell me Malay is foreign to them, ni tangan Melayu jugak yang akan tenyeh lada di bibirmu anakku, the old skool way. Unless of course it is due to my own fault. But I doubt it. 

How about a national Speak Malay campaign? Everyone should be made to speak the national language, like our parents’ generation when it was still compulsory. 

If it’s your national language, why don’t you speak it? - A bewildered foreigner friend asked a local non Malay speaking friend.

Oh? I didn’t know, I thought the national language was English (or Chinese for that matter). - Another typical exclaim from foreigners.

Come on, our Malay language has been romanized. How much easier do we need it to be to be able to read and write and speak? Structure is so simple… we’re not expected to read Malay in Jawi anymore, which I can proudly say I can :) I always tell my European friends that Malay is probably the easiest language to pick up. 

If you ask me, you need to stop it with the enforcement of Baku in the Malay language first, then perhaps it wouldn’t feel as foreign aye? It’s bullshit really. I’d rather pay more attention to making sure my kids know how to tie the samping, how to anyam ketupat, how to play congkak etc. I’d rather my kids learn Bahasa Melayu at home, from me or their grandparents, than have them end up speaking Malay like some foreign robot. Have you heard the kids speak Malay today? Apa tu?

It feels like an era of the end of the Malays on our own soil. Eh? Melodrama.