NOV 11 — One benefit of multilingualism that particularly resonates with me is how it broadens one’s horizons considerably.
We think in words. To some extent, how we think and see the world depends on the languages we speak. But not all languages capture the myriad concepts and ideas known to mankind equally.
A simple example: whether or not we perceive a colour depends on whether we have a name for that colour in our heads. In other words, if we did not know the word ‘orange’ then we may think orange hues as similar to red.
The different ways various cultures categorise colours mean people see colours differently.
A three-year study by British researchers found that children from the Namibian tribe Himba only learn five basic colours. For instance Himba children categorise red, orange and pink as “serandu”, and would think of red and orange as the same even though they perceive the difference in shade.
In comparison, English-speaking children recognise red, orange and pink as separate colours with separate words to categorise them with, and thus can identify these hues as being completely different.
Still some languages do not capture certain concepts at all.
One famous example is the Guugu Yimithirr language, spoken by the Australian aboriginal tribe Guugu Yimithirr. This language does not have equivalent words for what we think as “left”, “right”, “forward” or “backward.”
Rather, their sense of direction is conveyed purely in geographic terms — north, south, east, west.
Now those who only speak this language would have to know, all the time, where north is — otherwise they cannot express where they are, where they are going, and so on. The structure of their language, in terms of direction at least, dictates how they think about it.
The implication is two people, who each only know one language that is different from the other, may not perceive and understand a universal concept equally. One may understand it easily, the other may struggle to wrap his head around it.
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in his 1922 book that the limits of his language mean the limits of his world, and I think the same can be said for most of us.
In the Malaysian context, this is why mastery of English, in addition to Malay, is crucial in order for our graduates to be more marketable, for us to advance further as a nation. Mastering multiple languages opens more doors and provides wider access to the world’s wealth of knowledge.
A Malaysian, who masters both Malay and English, to my mind, sees a bigger world than another who only masters one of them, not just socially but also in terms of the ideas, concepts and expressions we have at our disposal.
And the more languages our young speak the better, because what aspect one language lacks or is less refined in, another may be able to accommodate.
Additionally an older, more refined and developed language can serve as a reference point for our younger Malay language to grow along towards in terms of expanding its vocabulary. Such is the role that English has been playing in our country.
Although I have reservations about the apparent fast-tracking we are seeing in terms of the Malay language’s growth — the straight Malay-nisation of many English words regardless of whether our Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) has an official Malay equivalent.
Englayu, as a fellow columnist described this practice, feels unnatural, and to some extent robs the Malay language of its graceful qualities. Another columnist pointed out that the Malay language, being young, needs to be given due time to catch up naturally, and I am inclined to agree.
Given that the Malay language has much room to grow and much catching up to do compared to older, more developed languages, we should hope that DBP’s work in expanding the national language’s scope sees much progress in the near future, especially in terms of growing public awareness of what and how the Malay language has grown recently.
Otherwise we may see a growing disconnect between those making use of concepts beyond the normal scope of Malay and those who do not understand them fully, due to language limitations or otherwise.
For instance, satire is a known as “satira”, but I doubt many Malaysians use “satira” freely in daily conversations to express the concept. What then happens is some people may not get the point of a satire, unable to appreciate the humour or irony.
Worse, some may even mistake satire for outright disrespect or insult when it is merely a different form of delivering critique.
For that matter, I think DBP should translate the English urban slang “butthurt” which means being disproportionately upset or angry over petty or trivial matters, into Malay soon too.
There’s been a lot of butthurt going around and it looks like it is here to stay.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
