The End of the English Tongue?

Love him or hate him, Tun Mahathir is a man worthy of hearing out. This is one time he is not politising nor personalizing the issue. Compared to the controversy of the Crooked Bridge, scrapping the use of English in Science and Mathematics is the unkindest cut of all and a stinging slap on his face.

As a sign of respect for this 84 year old man with an extremely sharp and focused mind, I would like to highlight the points he raised in his blog (13 March 2009) on why English should continue to be the medium of instruction in the teaching of Science and Mathematics.

I would paraphrased the points he raised.

He does not agree that teaching the two subjects in English has in any way reduced the status and growth of Bahasa as the national language.

He says learning is not about the development of a language but more toward the efficient acquisition of knowledge.

To him, in order to improve language, the language subject must itself be improved to a higher level to incorporate the arts. As such, teaching of science and mathematics in English cannot really help in the development of a language such as Bahasa. He says science and mathematics is not from Bahasa. Most of the words are originally derived from Latin which was later anglicised.

He agrees that translation can help in a small way but that you cannot translate all these scientific words. Moreover, there is no exact literal translation because words in different languages have different shades of meanings.

He gave an example.For example: Just the word oxygen can have derivatives ranging from oxidation, oxygenation, oxidants to peroxide. Just imagine there are about 120 elements in science alone. As such, you cannot absorb and translate all of these. Doing so,will turn Bahasa into English instead.

Science and Mathematics is dynamic. This body of language is growing everyday. Each day, there are new findings, discoveries and inventions. Every day, new research papers are written. Almost all are written in English. If all these are required to be translated in timely fashion, a bilingual specialist expert in the subject will be required. There are hardly many of these experts in the country currently. Moreover, experts such as these may not want to be full-time translators. Once you teach Science and Maths in Bahasa, such bilingual experts will slowly disappear. If that happens,how then can the country have such experts to continue to closely follow the latest development of science globally and be able at the same time,to translate adequately on a continuous basis, he asked. Moot point.

He added, just on the translation angle alone, Malaysians will suffer as they can no longer keep in step with the world development of science and mathematics.

There is enough proof out there that not many of our tertiary students have done their PhD dissertations in Bahasa without the benefit of English to research needed resources. All have used English resources.

Scientists and medical experts have to attend international fora and conferences to upgrade themselves on the latest going-ons globally. These are held in English. Lack of English skills will certainly incapacitate them from active discussion, to the loss of the nation.

He also disagreed that rural students cannot acquire English effectively. The very fact that many of these students are today holding high positions in both the public and private sectors including the foreign office, is sufficient testimony that they have succeeded in this.

In analogy, he said foreigners at one time studied Arabic because before the 15th Century, Islamic civilization was involved in active pursuit of science and knowledge development. Today, sadly the Islamic countries have forsaken science and the pursuit of knowledge. As such, the Western nations have taken over the science world and English is now crucial to pursue such knowledge. Paradoxically,today Arab countries have to study English to be able to access vital scientific knowledge.

He pleaded that as Malaysians, we must not be supra nationalistic about our national language as to blindly forfeit the future of our incoming generations. The love of one’s country must supersede the love of one’s language. One must strive for a developed nation,knowledgeable and respected by the world. Just being mere great speakers of Bahasa will unlikely bring about respect from the world.

Such cogent thoughts and yet it fell on deaf ears. One up for politics;another generation of Malaysians to the 'global slaughterhouse'.