Bahasa Melayu to be promoted globally
PUTRAJAYA : The government is gearing up to promote Bahasa Melayu as a cultural and civilisation element to the world.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said such an effort was to ensure the globalisation of culture and civilisation would not be a one-way street.
“It doesn’t mean that it must be solely from the West to the East. It can be from the East to the West,” he said before launching the final round of the International Bahasa Melayu Public Speaking Competition here last night.
Najib added that activities like public-speaking competitions could be a vehicle to promote Bahasa Melayu globally.
The prime minister said there was no excuse not to promote and put the language on a higher pedestal, especially with the existence of information communication technology.
Najib was also upbeat with the increased number of foreign countries participating in this year’s public speaking competition from 23 countries when it was first introduced in 2007 to more than 50 this year.
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| Datuk Seri Najib Razak with Shazwan Suhaimi (second from left), the winner of the regional category, from Malaysia and the international category winner, Zhang Song from China (second from right), at the International Bahasa Melayu Public Speaking Competition in Putrajaya yesterday. — NST picture by Izhari Ariffin |
The competition saw 56 contestants pitching their oratory skills in Bahasa Melayu, starting from Monday, to win the Prime Minister’s trophy. Najib also urged all the foreign participants to maximise the usage of Bahasa Melayu when they took part in a homestay programme in Malacca starting today.
The winners of the competition were Malaysian Shazwan Suhaimi (nusantara or regional category) and China’s Zhang Song (international category). They walked away with US$5,000 (RM17,500) and a certificate each.
Earlier, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said it would be made compulsory for the 65,000 foreign students studying here to take up Bahasa Melayu as a subject so that they could understand the country’s culture.
“This will definitely increase the number of Bahasa Melayu speakers.”
by Azura Abas.
http://www.nst.com.my/articles/2pida/Article/index_html
