English?

The debate on whether Science and Mathematics should be taught in English has been at the tips of every one's tongues, yet again. After having implementing this system for about 10 years already, the debate is still going on.

Why?

Because they're afraid of losing out. They're afraid that they will lose their culture. Lose their language. Lose their roots. Lose who they really are.

Being Asian, I truly understand the concern. I too believe that you should be true to your roots. Most people would call me a 'banana' - yellow on the outside, white on the inside. That is partially true. But I beg to differ. I grew up speaking English as my first language because my parents didn't speak the same Asian language or dialect. Unlike most others, I speak Mandarin, English, Japanese, Malay and several local dialects fluently.

But what I don't understand is if you want to retain Bahasa Melayu as a proper language, bloody use it as a proper language.

Pick up any Malay newspaper these days and you will notice how many words they borrow from the English language. Countless.

Unfortunately, the Malay language will look sooner or later look like misspelt English.

Realism becomes Realisme. Definition becomes Definisi. Artist becomes Artis. Zoom becomes Zum. Guitarist becomes gitaris. Activity becomes aktiviti. Dance becomes Dansa. Gangsterism becomes Gangsterisme. Revolution becomes revolusi. You get my drift... and the embarrassing list goes on.

So if you're worried about losing out on a language because of these two subjects in school, you people are barking up the wrong tree. You should be more worried about building and preserving the language itself. You should be more worried for the originality of the words chosen for the language. You should be more worried about strengthening the language. You should be more proud of being a speaker of the language and not wanting to sound more foreign.

I'm proud to speak the Malay language. And I'm proud to say I speak it fluently too. Are you?

(Note : The Malay language is relatively a new language as compared to most languages in the world. A number of words were derived from olden languages like Sanskrit, Portuguese and Dutch - since Malaysia was once under their rule.)