Jangan mudah berkata-kata, kalau yang hanya dilihat adalah rupa.
Excuse me, pardon me. Coming through. Okay just imagine that I'm walking through with an enormous broom on my hand (because vacuum is too mainstream) trying to sweep off all the 5-inch dust laying around my blogosphere. This should be the longest time I haven't written anything to squeeze out of my head and seriously, it's getting cramped up with opinions that I'm sure every each and one of you would hate. I'm gonna start tonight's post on something that I love: Language.
Language had always fascinated me. The idea of having few words joined together and making a sentence just blew me away off my feet. I'm even more astonished with the theory that a sentence could bring the same meaning even when you build them with different words entirely. That is why Thesaurus has been my all-time favourite book. Nevertheless, the trouble with the Grammar especially English is definitely overwhelming. I mean, where are the rules?! I graduated through high school with just having assistance of the voice inside my head, repeating the lines whether they would make sense or I'll just remember it from a cartoon or a song.
Although, with the passion comes consequences and I'm sure it's not just me. Have you heard of 'sokonglah bahasa penjajah tuh, martabatkan bahasa melayu lah weh!'. This occurs few times in my life. Since I rather use English to communicate in my daily life, people would think me as being cocky because I avoid speaking in mother tongue language. It definitely doesn't help me with new people because of my face that look rather angry because of the lack of my eyebrow and I don't tend to smile when there's nothing to be happy about. To be honest, I keep talking in English because believe it or not, I wasn't so good back then. I was shy and wouldn't utter a single English word to my schoolmates or teachers. Then I moved to New Zealand, gathered my confidence and improved my English so much that at one point one of my Malaysian friend was confused that I had British accent when talking in English. Afraid that I might lose all that, I wanted to talk in English as much as I could whenever possible. Brushing them up, I'd say.
So whenever I bumped into those narrow-minded peeps, I tend to snort at them because 98% of the people who warned me to respect Bahasa Melayu couldn't even talk in proper BM or use proper vocabularies. It's such an irony for that. Languages was my favourite subjects during high school. I liked BM as much as I love English. Especially during examination where you're supposed to write the long essays, I'd definitely choose to write short stories rather than speeches or factual essays. I never scored less than 90% and always expand my vocabularies by using old Malay words or rare words that are only used in novels. I find satisfaction for every different words that I used. So you can guess what's my favourite book right.
Thus it annoys me bad that every word in Malay are now being modernized, or shall I say English-ed. I mean, changing the word to sound like Malay but it's actually from an English word.
I mean why use 'Solusi' when you can use 'Penyelesaian'? Why use 'Evolusi' than 'Perubahan'? Why use 'Kontrol' when you can use 'Kawal'?! Call me lame, but I think, if we want to 'martabatkan Bahasa Melayu', use them without feeling embarrassed. Use them proudly. Use old Malay words, use original words. Yes, the media use them widely, but believe it or not, it's us who control this. Why do we need to follow those who are clearly wrong when we can definitely choose our own path? This is why the knowledge of the language itself is important, not just the execution. Read, read and read. Read old books, old Malay novels. Learn your origin. Be original. If this continues, I bet even Hang Tuah would regret saying that "Takkan Melayu hilang di dunia."
Language had always fascinated me. The idea of having few words joined together and making a sentence just blew me away off my feet. I'm even more astonished with the theory that a sentence could bring the same meaning even when you build them with different words entirely. That is why Thesaurus has been my all-time favourite book. Nevertheless, the trouble with the Grammar especially English is definitely overwhelming. I mean, where are the rules?! I graduated through high school with just having assistance of the voice inside my head, repeating the lines whether they would make sense or I'll just remember it from a cartoon or a song.
Although, with the passion comes consequences and I'm sure it's not just me. Have you heard of 'sokonglah bahasa penjajah tuh, martabatkan bahasa melayu lah weh!'. This occurs few times in my life. Since I rather use English to communicate in my daily life, people would think me as being cocky because I avoid speaking in mother tongue language. It definitely doesn't help me with new people because of my face that look rather angry because of the lack of my eyebrow and I don't tend to smile when there's nothing to be happy about. To be honest, I keep talking in English because believe it or not, I wasn't so good back then. I was shy and wouldn't utter a single English word to my schoolmates or teachers. Then I moved to New Zealand, gathered my confidence and improved my English so much that at one point one of my Malaysian friend was confused that I had British accent when talking in English. Afraid that I might lose all that, I wanted to talk in English as much as I could whenever possible. Brushing them up, I'd say.
So whenever I bumped into those narrow-minded peeps, I tend to snort at them because 98% of the people who warned me to respect Bahasa Melayu couldn't even talk in proper BM or use proper vocabularies. It's such an irony for that. Languages was my favourite subjects during high school. I liked BM as much as I love English. Especially during examination where you're supposed to write the long essays, I'd definitely choose to write short stories rather than speeches or factual essays. I never scored less than 90% and always expand my vocabularies by using old Malay words or rare words that are only used in novels. I find satisfaction for every different words that I used. So you can guess what's my favourite book right.
Thus it annoys me bad that every word in Malay are now being modernized, or shall I say English-ed. I mean, changing the word to sound like Malay but it's actually from an English word.
I mean why use 'Solusi' when you can use 'Penyelesaian'? Why use 'Evolusi' than 'Perubahan'? Why use 'Kontrol' when you can use 'Kawal'?! Call me lame, but I think, if we want to 'martabatkan Bahasa Melayu', use them without feeling embarrassed. Use them proudly. Use old Malay words, use original words. Yes, the media use them widely, but believe it or not, it's us who control this. Why do we need to follow those who are clearly wrong when we can definitely choose our own path? This is why the knowledge of the language itself is important, not just the execution. Read, read and read. Read old books, old Malay novels. Learn your origin. Be original. If this continues, I bet even Hang Tuah would regret saying that "Takkan Melayu hilang di dunia."
Peludah Bahasa, I'll tell you what I think about this in the next post,
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