English, The Language of Opportunities

If you meet a fellow Malaysian and he doesn’t understand English, chances are you’ll be conversing in Bahasa Melayu. Young or old, rich or poor, city or ‘kampung’ folk, all of us have at least basic knowledge of our national language.

Our parents spoke Bahasa Melayu. Our neighbours would yell, ‘Hujan mari!’, or maybe ‘Hujan mali!’, and we always knew what it meant: drop everything and take in the clothes. In school, we greeted our class teacher with a loud ‘Selamat pagi, Cikgu!’ regardless whether he or she was a Malay, Chinese, Indian, or any other race.

From schools to universities to offices to retirement homes, our beloved language holds a special place in our hearts. We sang ‘Negaraku’ together, cheered for the Malaysian Tigers, laughed and cried in front of the television watching P Ramlee or a Yasmin Ahmad commercial or one of the more current films. And even when we speak in English or Cantonese or Tamil, we still use Bahasa Melayu to some degree.

Its grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation are unlike any in the world. That’s why you teach it to your children and encourage them to do the same to theirs. Having said that, do not stop them from learning English as well.

Over 1.8 billion people speak and understand English. That’s one fourth of the world’s population. Just think about the places your children could explore, people they will meet, stories they will hear.

English is the common language in almost every endeavour, from science to air traffic control to diplomacy. It is spoken at some of the best universities, during job interviews and in hospitals everywhere. 80% of the world’s electronically-stored information is in English. It is also the dominant language of the Internet.

Scholars and researchers are already calling it the world’s first truly global language. Like football, English belongs to everybody and nobody at the same time. More non-native speakers of the language (that’s us) are shaping and remaking it every day, creating new words or giving new meanings to old ones.

Sir Richard Branson famously compared opportunities to buses: ‘There is always another one coming.’ Quite true. Except that by having command of both Bahasa Melayu and English, your child won’t have to wait for the transport. Instead, the bus will be waiting for him. And who knows how far he’ll go?

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Adapted from: English For More Opportunities Star2 Sunday 2 September 2012