Language Chauvinism

Getting “tradies” to attend to small faults or repairs is expensive in both Melbourne and Shah Alam. I am my own handyman at home. Bunnings Warehouses in Australia are very well-stocked; you can get virtually everything on building and garden needs under the sun. In Malaysia, traditional hardware shops are everywhere, but they are usually messy in terms of product display. The nearest equivalents to the Bunnings are Ace Hardware and Mr DIY. However, in terms of comprehensiveness, they are a far cry from the Bunnings.

This lack of comprehensiveness is not a big issue to me, since my things I usually look for are not uncommon most of the time. It is the lack of product knowledge and language skills that the workers in places like Ace Hardware and Mr DIY have that annoy me each time I visit them. A couple of days ago, I was looking to buy a file at Citta Mall’s Ace Hardware. None could understand me! When I found the stock, the woman shop assistant sheepishly said she thought I was looking for files in the stationery sense! She could not understand English, and I could not say “file” in Malay! I proceeded to Mr DIY in the same complex to procure the cheaper stuff. I asked for grout. It was Greek to the shop assistant. I had to point to the joints between the tiles on the floor to show him what grout was. 

English proficiency among the workers in Malaysia is now close to zero. And this trend is also true in many countries. If you do not venture out, I suppose there is nothing wrong with it. However, if you must go to another country to earn a living, then you will find yourself totally handicapped. The security guards from Nepal and the domestic helps from Indonesia are obvious examples in Malaysia. We also have compatriots commuting to Singapore everyday to earn a living. Many have to settle for very low-end jobs across the causeway, and lack of English proficiency is usually a cause.

All this is basically a result of misplaced language chauvinism in most countries.

Our schools used to produce students who could at least master two languages – English and Malay – and the student’s mother tongue of either Mandarin or Tamil. In an overzealous effort to make the National Language, namely, Malay, pre-eminent in the country, the country makes them totally inadequate in English and many opportunities are hence shut to them. The general lack of English proficiency makes the country uncompetitive in the fast-changing world. At best it could only benefit from the demand, rather than the supply, side of the economic equation.

Most foreign workers in Malaysia from countries like Myanmar, Nepal and Indonesia can also hardly speak English. Some leaders of these countries are aware of this handicap and I sense some efforts are already underway to make their students learn English in a more serious manner.

Malaysia is uniquely advantaged to promote wider use of English. Maybe as much as half the population has good command of the language. But if the decline is not addressed with a sense of purpose and urgency, we will see English speaking becomes the preserve of the elite class in the country.

I am not a defender of the English language. Whether we like it or not, English is the default international language today. We cannot change history; we all know why this has happened. No country today can hope to replace English with its own language as the lingua franca of the world. More and more people may learn Chinese, but I dare say it cannot replace English internationally. Chinese in China are also aware of this reality; many are learning to speak and write English well.

What more for a country like Malaysia or Indonesia or Thailand or Myanmar or Nepal or for that matter any country that talks up language chauvinism? It will simply not be able to keep up with what is happening in the STEM front, which is the basic building block for progress.

In short, every country should equip its people with at least two languages – its national language and English, supplement by whatever mother tongues or dialects in its regions to maintain cultural heritages. Not all cultural practices are good. Bad ones will ultimately fade as a matter of course in this every well connected world, but these are also useful lessons in improving a race’s competitiveness or survival chances.

Blind language chauvinism is a sure way to strangle your own race.