The issue of Bahasa Malayu from colonial to decolonial era

Abstract

This paper illustrates a general picture of development of Bahasa Melayu in terms of its socializati on through out the colonial and de-colonial periods. Colonialism ought to be regarded to a larger extent, a reconstruction of the languages of the natives in their homeland. On the other hand, de-colonialism has witnessed the process of de- con str uction of existing language policies an d practices in n ewl y established nation -states. This is a process that cannot be alienated from the efforts of the colonial scholarly rulers, since they played a paramount role and functioned well pertaining to the use of Bahasa Melayu, though they did not plan for what appeared during the de- colonial era. To map the position of Bahasa Melayu during the different colonial periods, the investigation has been narrowed to certain fields focusing on the use of the language in an education system. Henceforth, it would be naïve to expect that the language issue would be settled in a short time after the independence. Wh en all steps and phases are traced, it would become clear that how the process was stressful and is still in evitably, at least to some extent, a national issue. It was during the British era and most of the post -in dependence era, that various types of policies were designed to rediscover the phenomen on of Bahasa Melayu in terms of history, sociology, culture and civilization. All the policies have played paramount roles and functioned as tools in the construction of cultural unity and nation -state formation in a successive manner. These transformations have led Bahasa Melayu to be brought into full existence normatively from a mere position of vernacular system wh ich was described as a malfunction during the colonial era. The attempts to design a national and official language are claimed as the cement of socio-political unity in the newly established nation-state. The language transformation process was smooth , in stead, it in cluded extremely challenging situations and contradictory encounters. The nation-state building during the decolonization has witnessed the growing competitiven ess between languages, not only the English and Bahasa Malayu but also Bahasa Malayu and minority languages as an expression of exoglossic policy and endoglossic policies.