Linguistic 'cultured' deputy

(AFP) - Malaysia's deputy education minister has said that speaking English in the workplace is "weird" and harmful to the nation's culture and identity, a report said Wednesday.

Mohd Puad Zarkashi said employees in the private sector used English 99 percent of the time and should switch to Bahasa Malaysia in order to show pride in the national language, the New Straits Times reported.

"This also occurs in government-linked companies where we have this weird culture of people speaking to each other in English instead of the national language," he said at the launch of a linguistics seminar.

"We are polluting our own culture and identity as a nation," he said.

"It would be difficult to strengthen the position of Bahasa Malaysia if this culture continued," he added, urging Malaysians to emulate the French, Japanese and Koreans, who stuck to their own language.

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So speaking English is ‘weird’ for this moron. It is weird for only the weirdos.

It is harmful to the nation’s culture and identity he says.
 
So tell me, what is our culture and what does it represent? Do we have a culture in the first place? We do have a corrupt culture that every Malaysian is aware of.

So how can we pollute our own culture if we do not have one? Puad, we have to ‘switch’ to our Bahasa Malaysia to show pride in the National language? That is what some may say, talking cock.

For a long time, the older generation went to English medium schools and these people are highly successful – that includes the Malays. Then came the switch to BM being the medium of instruction and we sank into an abyss. For a year the Malays were riding high. Then a few years passed and the non-Malays became fluent in BM – perhaps even more fluent than the Malays.

After that, a small switch back to English – Math and Science – to keep up with the rest of the world. We were in the struggling stages but making some progress. Progress comes with time.

Now we have regressed – Math and Science to be taught in BM again. Just when the Malays were making some headway they are pushed back into the stone age.

Is that the culture you are talking about? Why did you not do anything about the bohsia culture?

Then we had the ‘kutu’ culture. Now, you are bringing them all back and making them ‘our’ culture.

You do not have to go very far to see frisky young suppressed Malay girls openly demonstrating their promiscuity – with ‘tudungs’ on mind you. That is a ‘munafiq’ culture.

People like you, with a myopic knowledge of the word ‘culture’ go around preaching garbage. Are you trying to create a subculture?

In any case, are you talking about a Malaysian culture or a Malay culture? You mentioned…’our’ culture. So which is it?

The Malay ‘culture’ is largely derived from the Indian culture. Everyone knows that. Your bersanding ( marriage ceremony ), the clothes you wear, the language, from your songkok to your sepatu, your baju melayu, baju kurung, ghazal …just to mention a few – all these are borrowed from India. Iskandar Shah aka Parameswara brought all these with him in 1403. The Malay Sultanate was based on the Indian sultans, maharajas and maharanis who Indira Ghandi got rid of simply because it was a sheer waste of the tax-payers money.

Sultan is an Indian word. Doa is an Indian word. All the words mentioned above originated in the India. Other ‘Malay’ words are borrowed from the English Language.

English words are ubiquitous in the ‘Malay’ Language – just insert affixes to make them all ‘Malay’ words. Then you will popularkan the 'Malay' language.

So why do you have English words in your language when you do not wish to have anything to do with that language?

Text messages to be in Malay? You have a tiny mind Zarkashi. A mind like yours is dangerous. You are a menace to the progress of your own kind. You are totally clueless and are in dire need of guidance.

But sek (sex) in any language spells the same. Sammy urges not to hisap dada. Now, that is one guy who needs to learn BM. You spew venom and mock the language that has helped the people who walk through the Corridors of Power and others like yourself who after having the rudiments of the language, do not wish to educate your own kind for fear of them being able to have a debate with you in the English Language.

You want to emulate the French, Japanese and the Koreans? Have you forgotten that these countries are industrialized? Malaysia is just about waking up and we need the English Language to progress and achieve industrialization – in perhaps 50 years. By that time the others would be 50 years ahead of us.

It is clear that you were not paying attention during History lessons. Either that or you had a moron like you for a teacher.

How on earth can you emulate these countries? You are spewing garbage. These countries are too far ahead for Malaysia to catch up with them. To emulate them would be courting with disaster. Let us progress at our own pace. What is wrong using English for the betterment of the country?

When we have ‘emulated’ what France, Japan and Korea, then perhaps we could place more importance on BM.

For the moment, we need the English Language for obvious reasons unknown to ignorant people like you.

So now we know all about delays when we write to people who hold the same policy as you – you just do not seem to comprehend the English Language – a Universal Language – and simply send the letters back to senders.

Government schools are far behind the Private schools who use English as the medium of instruction.

You seem to have a warped sense of logic – worse than Nik Aziz. Imagine you being the PM of the country!

With you at the helm, every citizen is doomed – the Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dayaks and all others. The country will inexorably be alienated from the rest of the world and will never be able to recover from your policies and the manner in which you think (?), like the interpretations of the wahabbis.

I am not in the least surprised that we have people like you serving as Deputy Ministers. So what else is new?

Even the kampong folks know how important the English Language is. This I say from personal experience and from teaching English Language in a kampong for one year. So where did you come from?

A weird culture spoken by people in this country - English Language!

Every once in while, there will surface a dullard like you with barmy ideas about what is good for this country.

Any right-thinking person will surely know that if an individual or a country wishes to progress .... be proficient in the English Language.

Bring back the old system - English as the medium of instruction in all schools - then we will progress.