Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

So It Belongs To All Races Now

• Long long ago: Bahasa Kebangsaan (National Language)
• After 1957: Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian Language)
• 1986: Anwar Ibrahim changes it to Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language)
• 2007: It’s now Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian Language) again

This is very weird. The Malaysian government has decided that once again, their national language shall henceforth be known as “Bahasa Malaysia” (Malaysian Language) instead of “Bahasa Melayu” (Malay Language). It’s like they suddenly realized again that other (non-Malay) races do live in Malaysia and use it daily.

While I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I wonder what triggered this move.

Based on that time line, in another 20 years or so, it will be known as Bahasa Jerman. They cede control and sell a 51% share of the language to a consortium of foreign tuna canning factories because of low quality and unability to come up with terminology that can keep up with the modern world.

FYI “broadband” is known as “jalur lebar” (wide stripe), download is “muat turun” (content down). Really clunky attempts to Melayu-ized terms.

To me, it is and always will be simply “BM”

Heh, yeah it’s always been BM to me too