TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
M. Sharifudin Yusop: Reviving Malay as a lingua franca
(JP/Setiono Sugiharto)In the 14th century, the Malay language was widely spoken as a lingua franca among some 300 million people in Southeast Asia
Change Size
(JP/Setiono Sugiharto) (JP/Setiono Sugiharto)
(JP/Setiono Sugiharto)
In the 14th century, the Malay language was widely spoken as a lingua franca among some 300 million people in Southeast Asia.
Yet, concomitant with rise of global forces in politics and with a global economy now dominated by the US and China, there is fear that the languages of these two countries (i.e. English and Chinese) will be preferred and spoken throughout ASEAN, pushing Malay to the brink of being moribund.
Amid the absence of voices protecting Malay from the suppression of globalization, M. Sharifudin Yusop, a Malaysian linguistic anthropologist at the Universiti Putra Malaysia, initiated the idea of revitalizing Malay in order to repeat its heyday as a lingua franca in the ASEAN region.
Expressing his concerns over the tough future Malay faced, Yusop said global politics had so deeply seeped into language policy and planning in the region that it threatened the existence of Malay.
He sees a close connection between the spread of global politics and ideologies and the use of Malay by its speakers, leading him to believe this spread can curtail efforts to globalize Malay as a lingua franca in the ASEAN region.
'In a situation where a powerful country's politics and ideologies permeates in the region, the political power of the Malay peoples can become fragile and their ideologies torn apart', he said during an interview.
'What is needed now is hard work to seek commonalities in ideologies, cultures and languages among members of ASEAN countries and then to find a basis of unification'.
Yusop visited Padang, West Sumatra, giving a talk in the first international seminar on linguistics under the theme 'Language and its Role in Developing National Identity', hosted by the University of Andalas.
On the sidelines of the seminar, he declared that the potential of Malay to repeat its historic glory as an ASEAN lingua franca was not impossible, given its large number of speakers. However, what concerned him the most was the crisis of confidence among the Malay people to use Malay as a language that could express concepts or terminologies related to science and technology.
Yusop expressed optimism that Malay had ample terminologies and was capable of becoming a dynamic language used to spread science to the world, adding that the language's vitality ought to be maintained and improved through a cultural process and socialization.
In terms of Malay, he stressed the importance of the language's socialization, so as to develop a mutual understanding among countries in ASEAN that used the language or its varieties.
'Diversity in the use of language can create potential conflict. For example, heated conflicts that took place between Indonesia and Malaysia are partly due to misunderstandings in language use,' he said.
'When the Malaysian newspaper once reported the soccer match between Indonesia versus Malaysia using the word tewas [as in Indonesia tewas oleh Malaysia, which was supposed to mean Indonesia was beaten by Malaysia], most Indonesians reacted strongly to the news, interpreting the word tewas as mati [dead]'.
Also as a consultant working at the non-govermental Bureau of Malay Cultural Study and Development (BKPBM) in Yogyakarta, Central Java since 2008, Yusop has compiled a three-series word list of the Malay language, and this year published a book entitled Keterancaman Bahasa Orang Asli Duano dan Kanaq (Threat of the Native Duano and Kanaq).
Thanks to his perseverance and active involvement in campaigning for the importance of using Malay for ASEAN's members, the bureau has successfully created a Malay portal online featuring a variety of creative products related to scholarly works on Malay, Malay cultures and culinary features. This portal has attracted more than a hundred million visitors worldwide.
Realizing the mutual benefits that can be reaped by both Malaysia and Indonesia, the two countries agreed to sustain the collaboration on cultural and language studies by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) represented by the Univeristi of Putera Malaysia and the Yogyakarta-based BKPBM in November this year.
