Dimana martabat Bahasa Kebangsaan
Reading this article makes me wonder what is wrong with the idea of having a national language? The news, Council staff to learn Mandarin, seems to give a very bad picture all-together.
A nation needs to have a proper setup of a unifying language that should be able to be used by evryone, whatever it is.
Maybe it's time for Malaysia to adopt Bahasa Mandarin as the national language?
Did you miss the article below?:-
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The Star Online > Nation
Friday April 1, 2005
Council staff to learn Mandarin
BY MAZNI MUSTAFA
IPOH: In a bid to serve the people better, the city council's counter staff will be learning Mandarin.
Datuk Bandar Datuk Hasan Nawawi Abdul Rahman said the first batch of 20 would undergo a three-month Mandarin-speaking course starting Sunday.
“We want our staff to know how to speak at least basic Mandarin or Cantonese because 60% of our clients are Chinese.
“By learning the language, they will be able to provide better services to our clients,” he said after chairing the monthly full board meeting here yesterday.
On another matter, Hasan reminded his officers not to delay the issuance of certificate of fitnesses (CFs) with excuses that the officers in charge were on leave or that the files had been misplaced.
He said a developer had lodged a complaint about such an occurrence recently.
He added that issuing CFs speedily ensured that development was not hindered and would bring in more revenue for the council.
© 1995-2005 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)
posted by mamat at 7:57 AM
7 Comments:
This is interesting. Finally I have seen someone blogging abt this.
I don't know if you read Chinese newspapers. As I can see, there's no much fanfare about this. All the MBI wanted is to serve the ratepayers better.
If we notice, some govt offices in Sarawak, such as MBKS etc have Chinese in their signboards. In Kota Bharu's Siti Khadijah central market, there's signboards in Chinese, Arab and Tamil alongside national language. So as in KLIA, Chinese, Arab and Japanese.
In Quebec and Hong Kong, there are 2 official languages. In Switzerland and Temasek, there are 4. Whatever the language you speak, the officers will still serve you.
Are Temasek or Hong Kong breaking apart because more than 1 language is allowed ? Is speaking more than 1 language to serve the citizens endangering national integration and posing a threat to national security ? If yes, please detain all the speakers of these languages in Kamunting university under ISA. I am sure you speak more than 1 language too.
Some govt depts, especially IRB (LHDN in national language), there are officers who can communicate with you in Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Tamil, Kadazandusun, Iban, to make sure that you don't pay a cent less in income tax. There are also translators in courts (Mahkamah in national language, borrowed from Arabic).
Police try to recruit those who can speak more languages in order to serve the people better and solve more cases easier. Students in MRSMs are also learning Mandarin, Japanese, French etc.
In the world of globalization, we either globalise or be globalised. If we are strong economically and militarily, if we produce lots of research journals containing the most canggih technology and inventions in Bahasa Malaysia, there's no reason why BM cannot take over English (just like English took over Latin) and everyone from seluruh pelusuk di dunia will come and learn our national language ! When that day comes, the martabat of BM akan ditingkatkan lagi. Not only bahasa kebangsaan but bahasa antarabangsa !
Hmm... The background pic I got from LcF... Maybe I change to something else when I am free and in the mood to change template next tyme okay ? :-)
Saturday, April 09, 2005 11:42:00 AM
Thanks for dropping by my blog. Interesting topics u have there. Keep it up
Saturday, April 09, 2005 11:54:00 AM
Shin.
Well said. And all the best with future blog updates.
Inevitable.
Merci beaucoup for dropping by too. Will keep on writing, insyAllah.
Take care all,
mamatd.
Friday, April 15, 2005 2:29:00 AM
I've replied to your comments. Check my entry again.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 1:58:00 PM
mamat,
I think it is alright for ALL staff to learn mandarin.
Malays today are at best bilingual (in the cities, english and bahasa), and non Malays are tri-lingual.Mostly mono-lingual.
Learning another languange does NOT downgrade the national language. We are asking citizens to learn a language of quite a proportion of the rakyat. Better still they learn Tamil too.
Of course, I would agree if we ask our staff to learn Japanese, Italian or Greek.
Some learn 4 languages,if you include bahasa kelatae.
Monday, April 25, 2005 2:32:00 PM
There was once a friend, a chinese guy, who liked to claim that he is the 'king of cannot speak chinese'.
I choose to feel ashamed about it. I can't speak that language even with my little neices and nephews.
Basically, I believe that the more languages we speak, the more tools we have. It is an extra skill.
Imagine the potential of the tens of thousands of non-chinese pupils who attend chinese schools.
I envy them.
Monday, May 09, 2005 9:28:00 AM
first you have bahasa kebangsaan. next you will have bahasa negeri,bahasa bandar, bahasa kampung, bahasa jalan, bahasa loring....
Thursday, May 19, 2005 11:51:00 AM
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