Language of Heaven?

 

PPSMI Fight Is Still On

The PPSMI fight is not over yet. Here is some news :

• Parent groups vow to fight on for PPSMI
• Concerned parents of various groups met on Sunday to discuss the actions they would take in their fight for the reinstatement of the teaching of Maths and Science in English (PPSMI).
• “First, we will hold a gathering to display our anger and anguish
• to present pleas to Sultan in respective states, with final plea to the King.
• “Candidates for elections in Klang Valley should speak up and we will give them our votes
• Here are other headlines about the PPSMI from The Star :
• Parents gather at PPSMI rallies
• Parent groups plan PPSMI rally
• Teacher joins bid to retain PPSMI
• Lawyer seeks to keep PPSMI

The two points in red above are interesting : the PPSMI folks wish to present memos to the Sultans and the King. Finally they will vote for whoever champions the PPSMI.

I thnik the PPSMI folks are going about this in a very civilised manner. Unfortunately this may not yield the desired results.

The urbanised, West Coast residents whether Malay, Chinese or Indian realise the importance of English as the language of survival. The non-urban people, especially many non-urban and non West Coast Malays do not see the need for English.

Among the religiously educated, or religiously influenced Malays the situation is worse – if possible they would like their children to be educated in Arabic, which they think is the language of heaven.

If there is just one single issue that is going to make or break the future of this nation it is the PPSMI. We abandon the PPSMI at great cost to our future. This will be especially true for the Malays, the Indians, the Kadazans, Dayaks etc.

The Chinese will not suffer as much because Mandarin is now developing into a world class language that can convey vast amounts of new knowledge. The same cannot be said yet of  Malay or other vernacular languages in the country.  Malay depends on ‘borrowed’ words from the English language. These borrowed words do not yet have currency in everyday Malay conversation in the cities, towns and villages.

‘Liberal’, ‘persepsi’, ekonomi, teknologi, publisiti, biologi, demografi, integriti, sosiologi and a thousand other English words do not form part of everyday Malay conversation. People just dont use these ‘English borrow words’ in their everyday conversation. Hence these ‘borrowed words’ cannot yet be the carriers of new knowledge into Malay society.

Yet these are the same English words that our Malay language proponents have imported into the Malay language with the hope of turning Malay into a language of knowledge. This just wont work.  It only causes a corruption of the Malay language that will end up neither here nor there. Bahasa Melayu pun tercemar, bahasa Inggeris pun tak faham.

It is just much easier to learn the English language and catch up with the rest of the world.

This is becoming an election issue now.

 

Can our children learn English? Yes they can. How do we know this? Because they can learn Arabic in school. It is more difficult to learn Arabic than to learn English. But thousands of Malay children are learning Arabic in school.  Why? Because they believe it is the language of heaven. 

Advertisement