A National Colloquial Language Convention will be held this October to sustain the vitality of community languages.
The event, set for Oct 15 and 16, is expected to draw 300 linguists.
National Archives of Malaysia director-general Datuk Jaafar Sidek Abdul Rahman said the inaugural convention would gather researchers, literary figures, cultural practitioners and the public to discuss the role of colloquial languages in building cultural identity and social cohesion.
He said the convention was a continuation of the state-level Colloquial Language Talk series, which began in Pahang last year and was being conducted progressively across the country.
“The programme has four series remaining, to take place in Terengganu, Melaka, Johor and Negri Sembilan, with Selangor being the seventh state to implement this programme.
“After that, a National Colloquial Language Convention will be held.
“The findings from all the series will be compiled and published as a Colloquial Language Dictionary or Colloquial Language Encyclopedia as well as Proceedings of the Colloquial Language Convention,” said Jaafar Sidek in Klang.
He told this to reporters during the Colloquial Language Talk programme, “Sustaining the Vitality of Community Languages, Traversing the Heritage of Selangor Dialects”.
The programme was attended by National Unity Ministry deputy secretary-general Mohamad Sobri Mat Daud, as reported by Bernama.
Jaafar Sidek said colloquial language was defined as conversational or informal language typically used in daily conversations, and which did not prioritise linguistic rules but rather focused on understanding and camaraderie between speaker and listener.
He said in addition to compiling and publishing the findings from the Colloquial Language Talk series, information about colloquial languages gathered from the series would also be accessible to the public in the form of recorded video materials.
He highlighted that the state-level Colloquial Language Talk programme aimed to fill the gap in the nation’s historical reference sources concerning colloquial languages, as they were also an authentic and reliable source of reference.
“We believe there is still much valuable information about colloquial languages, local languages or ethnic and tribal dialects that has not yet been collected, preserved, documented and published.
“Therefore, cooperation from all relevant parties is greatly needed by the National Archives to succeed in this documentation process,” he said.
