Status of Bahasa Melayu in the Political Situation of Malaysia

১৪ ই মার্চ, ২০২৪ বিকাল ৪:২৫

Promoting Bahasa Malaysia as a global language
Last February, the 21st, was the date of International Mother Language Day. On this day, there was a comprehensive discussion about the status, function, and structure of the languages spoken and used in different speech communities around the world. On this occasion, there is a need to initiate a discussion on the past, present, and future of the Bahasa Melayu since the Bahasa Melayu has been very significant in the global context. It has been a symbol of ethnicity and nationhood of the Malay nation. Moreover, it has been the national language, state language, and official language of Malaysia. Furthermore, it has also been the official language of Indonesia, Brunei, and Singapore. Furthermore, it has been an international language.

It is said that the proto-Melayu existed on the island of Borneo around 1000 BC. Although its origin is native to the island of Borneo, it has developed and flourished as a standardized language in the Malay Peninsula. This original language evolved to its present form under the process of multiple geographical, political, economic, social, and cultural factors. This original dialect became a full-fledged language in the fifteenth century in the political setting of the Malacca Sultanate on the island of the Malay Archipelago. The geographic location of the Malacca Straits acted as the main factor behind this language becoming a full-fledged language of commerce. By the 10th century A.D., the Straits of Malacca flourished as the main sea route for maritime communication among the regions of China, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Arabia. In this central location of the Malacca Strait, the use of Malay as a medium of commercial exchange continued to grow among merchants from different countries and regions. By the fifteenth century, the language had assumed the role of lingua franca in almost the entire region of the greater Nusantara. At that time, as European merchants started to expand their trade towards the East, the use of the language as a lingua franca continued to grow. Since then, the spreading of the Bahasa Melayu has continued and spread almost everywhere in the Nusantara region and become a widely acceptable Lingua Franca.

When the European imperialist powers were forced to withdraw from Southeast Asia at the end of World War II, the Nusantara region opened up to form several Republics. Then, the leadership needed languages to build the Republics. Language serves as the vehicle of administration, education, and mass media in creating the political superstructure of a republic. It is only possible to bring a vast population belonging to different speech communities into a political system with a standard means of language. At that time, the cultural inheritance of the Bahasa Melayu became the focus of discussion over the dilemma of whether to accept the imperialists' language or the local language as the state language required in the formation of Republics. Indonesia was the first republic to decide on this issue of language. When Indonesia gained independence on August 17th, 1945, the political leadership adopted the Bahasa Melayu as the national and official language in building the Republic of Indonesia. However, the Indonesian leadership named it the Indonesian language. Thus, the Bahasa Melayu emerged for the first time as a means to unify the Republic of Indonesia.

The recognition of Malay as the Indonesian language in colonial Indonesia paved the way for the acceptance of the language as the national language in Malaysia when Malaysia was established as a republic in 1957. The Bahasa Melayu was introduced as the national language, state language, and official language of the independent Republic of Malaysia. Thus, the Bahasa Melayu has been recognized as a language of prestige in its native land. However, the legacy of the British colonial rule left a large number of Chinese and South Indian Tamils, Malayalam, and Kannadas settled in the country, creating an unpleasant change in the linguistic demography of Malaysia. Thus, independent Malaysia acquired a heterogeneous language situation as part of the British colonial legacy. Eventually, after independence, the Malaysian government had to adopt Chinese and Tamil as the languages of education, administration, and mass media in the post-colonial linguistic situation. This political maneuver has created a multilingual situation in Malaysia, the impact of which is persistently visible in public places.

Thus, despite the fact that Malaysia inherited the Bahasa Melayu, the achievement of a thousand years of the Malay nation, due to the existence of some foreign languages obtained as a colonial legacy, there grew a language problem in building a unified Malay nation. The languages of the settler immigrants have been counteracting a barrier to national integration. Despite that, the recognition of Bahasa Melayu as the national language, state language, official language, language of education, and language of mass media in Malaysia has contributed to keeping Malay as a unified nation.

The economic prosperity of Malaysia over the past two decades has established Bahasa Melayu as a prestigious nation in the international setting. By this time, Malaysia is looking forward to contributing to global society through diplomacy, economy, commerce, and culture. It has initiated to spread the glory and heritage of the Malay nation to the world. As a part of this initiative, the country has been active in promoting and spreading the Bahasa Melayu around the world. Malaysian leadership has realized that language is one of the elements of cultural diplomacy. It should be noted that economically developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, China, and Korea, respectively, have developed and established institutions like the British Council, the Alliance Française, the Goethe Institute, the Japan Foundation, the Confucius Institute, and the Korea Foundation for promoting their language and culture. In a similar vein, the Malaysian leadership has realized the establishment of Malay Institutions to spread the potentiality of Bahasa Melayu. That is why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education have been sponsoring the establishment of the Bahasa Melayu study abroad. As part of such initiatives, these two ministries of the Malaysian government have been supporting the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Perak State for this initiative. As part of this initiative, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris has established Bahasa Melayu teaching and research programs through bilateral academic agreements with the counterpart universities in Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Under the patronage of the Malaysian government, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris has now been making efforts to promote Malay as a foreign language, which will likely play an influential role in promoting diplomatic relations with counterpart countries over time. This Bahasa Melayu study might serve as an instrument for cementing diplomatic relations at the public level and connecting to diplomatic ties at the state level. Thus, as the Bahasa Melayu continues to spread as a foreign language, it will serve as a means for cultural diplomatic relations. Given the firm ground for political, social, economic, and cultural foundations of the Malay-Indonesian language in Southeast Asia, I assume that this cultural diplomacy initiative using the Bahasa Melayu will help establish the Bahasa Melayu as a global language.

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