mana-mana: October 2008

“A Bahasa That Does Not Progress”
If dead languages are those that are no longer in use, could bahasa be dying a premature death?

Aziz Hassan
18 AUGUST 2008

IT’S a subject I’ve been planning to write about since some time back but decided that it had to wait for something to trigger the debate. And it was on the subject of a debate that I found the kicker.

Soon after the American style televised debate between Information Minister Shabery Cheek and opposition man Anwar Ibrahim last month, one Tam Yong Yuee wrote to the New Straits Times to question why the backdrop had the word debat instead of bahas or perbahasan.

Tam asked: “If there is an original Bahasa Malaysia word is there a need to coin an English-sounding term for it? Perhaps this is one aspect that we can have another public debate on and discuss the pros and cons of using Anglo-type words where original BM words exist.”

Thereafter two other NST readers – Mohd. Faizal Abdullah of KL and Nor Shahid Mohd. Nor – wrote with more examples and views. One word highlighted was bajet for budget. Nor Shahid (August 8) pointed out that all these rojak words are unsuitable and the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka should seriously look into equivalent Bahasa words instead of changing the spelling of the English words or changing the pronunciation altogether.

http://www.malaysiandigest.com/index.php?view=article&catid=102%3Aopinion&id=525%3Aa-bahasa-that-does-not-progress&option=com_content&Itemid=224