Dignifying the Malay Language

"All that we are is the result of all that we have thought. It is founded on thought. It is based on thought." - Buddha, The Dhammapada

As much as to fully understand the Al-Quran we need to be able to comprehend the Arabic language.

Thus as much as to understand the knowledge around the world these days, English would be the obvious choice. We cannot expect somebody to translate subjects from English to Malay everytime. What if the subject is not a popular one yet among the Malay-speaking community, like psychology and nuclear physics? This attitude will leave our community far behind. Knowledge, like computer advancement, evolves at an almost light speed rate. If we don't keep up today, we will be lost tomorrow.

But why English? This is because, somehow over the past few decades, English has been the chosen language as a lingua-franca, language used for business communication and education. This is not generally true but at least in major parts of the world. If in the future, the lingua-franca turns out to be Mandarin, then trust you me, it's Mandarin we will have to learn then.

But other countries still maintain their language and yet still remain advanced? This is because in their country alone, they are very much interested in these subjects. The Malay-speaking community generally speaking are not that into research studies and our community is not that educated to start with. So we have a lot more to learn from others compared to what they ned to learn from us. From such interests in subjects, they research, study and in fact, learn from other societies/countries, even if it takes to learn their language.

From all these, here are, in my opinions how we can dignify the Malay language:

1) Translate as much books from other language to Malay

2) Translate as much Malay books to other language

3) Get our people to be fluent in at least another language other than their Mother Tongue and English

4) Promote Malaysians writing, with that, encourage writers to produce books, in Malay, preferably in a technical subject/topic. If ever we have a well-written thesis or textbook on a certain subject matter, wouldn't others would be interested to understand/research the content of the book and that would require translation on their part?

5) Arts & Culture, Movies & Theatres, Writing Competitions & Tourism.

Requiring other races to be fluent in our beloved language while we do not take interest in other language is a passive manner to spread the beauty of the Malay language. As they say in business, you got to spend a dime to a make a dime, I think the same goes with getting people interested in any language. With that, I totally understand and agree, it is easier said than done, bit not impossible.