Friday January 26, 2007

Time to Malaysianise English

WHY NOT?
By RASLAN SHARIF

IT never rains but it pours. The floods are only just beginning to recede but we are already alerted of another disaster.

This one affects larger swathes of the country.

Tackling the problem will require greater effort than all the work that will be put into repairing infrastructure and rebuilding lives in the areas affected by the floods.

It is indeed a disaster on a national scale.

But it has got nothing to do with the changing climate. Or earthquakes. Or our infamous driving habits.

And while its effects are being felt more acutely than ever, this disaster we face is not even new.

It is our disastrously deteriorating command of the English language.

The joke is that our national football team could hardly string two passes together.

Substitute “sentences” for “passes,” and you have an apt description of the English language skills possessed by too many Malaysians, including, I presume, our football team.

To be fair, we are trying many things to remedy the situation.

This includes using English as a medium of instruction, most importantly in schools.

Unfortunately, the proficiency level of more than just a few instructors is less than medium.

It’s time we looked at the problem from a different angle and try other approaches.

English, to the uninitiated and uninclined, is not just a foreign language, it is also an alien one.

If we acknowledge that language plays a key role in shaping and determining our cultural outlook and individual worldview, then the solution to our problem is in sight.

We need to make English relevant to the non-native speaker by “localising” the language.

And a good place to start would be idioms.

An idiom is a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, or so the American Heritage Dictionary tells us.

An example would be, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

There would be little trouble in explaining what the phrase means to a Bahasa Malaysia speaker, for instance, mainly because there is an equivalent Malay saying – “Masuk kandang kambing, mengembik” (When in a goat pen, bleat).

But our English lesson sails into stormy waters once we enter more exotic and esoteric territory.

Let me give an example. Nothing could probably be so perplexing to someone trying to learn English as the saying, “Pull the wool over his eyes.”

Not only do we not use much wool, if at all, in the tropical heat of our country, it would also confuse the learner further if we were to tell him that the “wool” referred to is actually a powdered wig.

Say what?

It is clear that such idioms would need to be localised to aid and speed up the learning process. In this case, something along the lines of “pull the songkok over his eyes” would be more appropriate.

These modifications are nothing new. We already see instances of Ali, Ah Chong and Muthu (and several other variations) being used in place of Tom, Dick and Harry.

So in the spirit of sharing this great burden of reversing the tragic state of our English, here are several other recommendations:

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

With apologies to Shakespeare, this stinks.

With illegal dumpsites mushrooming in the Klang Valley, everyone can see and understand that there is definitely something rotten in the state of Selangor.

“Ride roughshod”

A phrase that only the mounted units of the Royal Malaysian Police and Kuala Lumpur City Hall would probably understand.

Horses and horse riding are not part of Malaysian culture. We need something closer to home to explain what it means.

How about “ride rempit”? Now there’s a contemporary, and some might say contemptuous, sub-culture worth being made an example of.

Many Malaysian motorists would be able to tell you how it feels to be ridden rempit over.

“Ballpark figure”

The “ball game” in this country is football. It is played on fields, which together with parks, are becoming a rarity these days, especially in urban areas.

A more appropriate setting would be the Mamak shop, where Malaysians regularly congregate and engage in speculative assessments and estimations on a multitude of topics.

Hence, “Mamakshop figure.”

“Flogging a dead horse”

Another popular phrase involving a horse.

Since dengue is a recurring public health concern, in spite of the numerous efforts taken to increase awareness, let’s modify the phrase to “fogging a dead mosquito.”

There are many other idioms that could use a little tweaking, but lest I be accused of running riot or going overboard, I shall stop here.

If ever the relevant authorities were to engage in such an exercise to “save our English,” then remember: You heard it here first, right from the horse’s mouth.

Star Online Editor Raslan Sharif believes in minding his language, and would like to publicly thank his father for purchasing the 1967 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 40 years ago.

News Poll

Latest Jobs from Star-Jobs

Latest from StarProperty