Bahasa Rojak in Malaysia

Categories: Malaysia
Last week Malaysia's Education Minister said that the government would consider passing legislation to strengthen the national language. This comes about as the country is seeing a gradual erosion of Bahasa Malaysia. In my opinion, this problem started some twenty years ago when the Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka (DBP) started using 'Malay-nised' English words in place of Malay words that was already in usage.

Example are words like situasi (keadaan semasa) and produksi (keluaran). Such erosion should had been contained but it wasn't. With time, more and more English words were introduced into the vocabulary. Granted that some words have no Malay equivalent. This neccessitates new words to be coined or borrowed from other languages. However given the ease of borrowing foreign words, this unfortunately was the chosen course.

It is timely that the Education Minister look into the erosion of the national language. The transformation of native Malay words to the 'Malay-nised' English words fortunately is a slow process and therefore probably easier to contain. The problem is with the language of SMS which because of its popularity, spreads like wild fire. Not only does SMS corrupt Malay words, it also destroy the grammar and worse still it created non-existant words. This is the menace that the government should try to contain. However how the government will implement the ruling and its implementation effectiveness remains to be seen. SMS being a private thing should prove difficult to be monitored, short of invading one's privacy.

Utusan Malaysia has been spearheading a campaign for correct usage of Bahasa Malaysia. However reading the online version of Utusan Malaysia alone leaves me wonder why they do not follow what they professed. All examples below were obtained from Utusan Online 8 March 2006. I will try to recall what I had learned in school some twenty years ago and 'correct' the examples given.

Examples:
> Pemimpin berkualiti mempunyai visi jelas = Pemimpin yang bermutu mempunyai pemikiran jauh yang jelas
> Secara jujur, kita berada dalam dilema = secara jujur, kita berada dalam keadaan yang tertekan
> Karnival = pesta
> informasi = keterangan
> interaksi = pergaulan
> prosedur = langkah-langkah peraturan
> soal sosial = soal kemasyarakatan


The following extracts were taken from an essay written by Nordi Achie, of Pusat Penataran Ilmu dan Bahasa, Universiti Malaysia Sabah entitled Satu Bahasa, Satu Bangsa. It is a great essay commenting on the state of the national language today and the possible reasons why. Problem is, there were a lot of 'Malay-nised" English words. I will highlight some below with their 'corrected' versions.


> dalam konteks pembinaan bangsa Malaysia = dalam suasana pembinaan bangsa Malaysia
> jika benar kita serius untuk menghakikatkan gagasan = jika benar kita memegang kepada kepentingan untuk menghakikatkan gagasan
> rancangan merealisasikan Wawasan 2020 = rancangan mewujudkan/menjayakan Wawasan 2020


In one of its editorials, the Utusan Malaysia also placed some blame on the local councils and the Housing and Local Government Minister when it wrote:


Berleluasanya papan iklan yang langsung tidak menghormati Bahasa Kebangsaan ini, mungkin ada kaitan dengan sikap pihak berkuasa tempatan (PBT) seluruh negara. PBT di bawah Kementerian Perumahan dan Kerajaan Tempatan dipimpin oleh menteri bukan Melayu maka kita faham `kekurangannya' dalam memberi keutamaan terhadap soal memartabatkan bahasa Melayu. Tetapi majoriti pengarah dan pemimpin PBT adalah Melayu sepatutnya peka dan sedar tentang kecelaruan penggunaan bahasa Melayu yang menghiasi bangunan dan jalan raya di kawasan pentadbiran masing-masing.


This is obviously barking up the wrong tree because signboards alone does not ensure the proper use of a language. Language is a 'living' thing and signboards and advertisements are merely symbols. What is important is the usage of the language. Even bumiputra nowadays choose to speak English. The question is how to encourage the citizens to use Bahasa more in their daily lives - and this includes the bumiputras as well. Furthermore why blame a non-Malay minister when certain quarters which championed the Bahasa chose to call themselves Persatuan Linguistik Malaysia when it could have been easily been called Persatuan Bahasa Malaysia. and people like Nordi Achie chose to use Bahasa rojak for their cause.


It further mentioned that:


Usah biarkan tanggungjawab untuk mendaulatkan Bahasa Kebangsaan ini diserah bulat-bulat kepada DBP. Jika DBP bersuara lantang pun apa maknanya jika mereka tiada gigi dan taring untuk `menggigit' pihak yang enggan mematuhi peraturan bahasa Melayu.


But it was DBP which started 'Malay-nised' English terms during my school days. I still remember my Physics book which was in Bahasa. Nobody could understand what the book was trying to say and this was not because our Bahasa was poor; it was because of the atrocious translation, so much so that we gave up and used the English version instead! I was lucky because I was in pioneer year when the medium of instruction was switched to Bahasa.

I think the problem of 'rojak' Malay is not a new one or an unique one. This problem had surfaced several times over the years. The following are some of the extracts after a search on bahasa rojak in Utusan Online's archives which revealed nearly 120 entries.

> Bahasa rojak, Melayu hamburger (04/07/1998)
> Stesen TV dan bahasa Melayu (05/11/1998)
> Bahasa rojak jejas kedaulatan bahasa (24/02/1999)
> "Bahasa Rojak" Is Out, Says RTM (03/02/2000)
> Krisis generasi bahasa rojak -Pandangan dua tokoh tentang penguasaan dua bahasa (17/03/2002)
> Apabila bukan Melayu tegur bahasa rojak (16/07/2003)
> Pakar bahasa tolak istilah `Infotainmen' (12/08/2004)
> Ada akta tapi tiada kuasa (02/12/2004)
> Masih adakah pejuang bahasa? (31/03/2005)


The challenge ahead for the use of Bahasa is how to encourage the citizens to use the language in their daily lives. Part of the problem is in the lack of reading materials. I am not talking about magazines, for there are plenty of Bahasa magazines available. There are certainly lack of technical, and scientific journal and magazines that are translated into Bahasa. Only when such reading materials are available, can there be a realistic chance that the slide of Bahasa standards be arrested.

To conclude, I highly recommend everyone to read the exclusive report entitled SEMINAR ANTARABANGSA LINGUISTIK MELAYU 2005 by Cikgu Isa of Jabatan Pengajian Melayu. It is surprising that a champion of the Bahasa should write the way he did - using so many 'Malay-nised' English - when he could have easily used original Bahasa terminology.


Links:
DBP patut gulung tikar? by Lee Ban Chen, Malaysiakini, 17 September 2004