Why is it important to be able to speak the Chinese dialects that are commonly spoken in Malaysia? Chinese people populate more than 20% of the Malaysian population. Between the early and the mid-20th century ancestors had migrated to Malaysia, as well as the languages. Languages that are brought with them to Malaysia are Hokkian, Cantonese, Hakka, Teo Chew, Hainan and more. They are called the Malaysian Chinese dialects. Dialect means spoken languages in the most basic level, languages that some groups of people feel comfortable to speak in, but at the same time causing separation among outsiders. Dialects are a trademark of a person’s tradition and culture. Unfortunately, many teenagers stop using dialects. One of the reasons is because they are educated in English, Chinese and Bahasa Malaysia (the main languages). Also, International languages seem to be the most important languages in everyone’s mind. In fact it is, because communication is the main tools of everything. Communication is the bridge of connection between all human beings, and speaking in more than one language helps you connect with more of the population in the world. By speaking international languages such as English and Mandarin helps mostly everyone in the world to be connected. These top 2 international languages are widely and most spoken languages around the world. - Most world top films, movies and music are published in English - Most content in the internet is written in English - Many countries take English as their first language. - China produces many products that are used all over the world. - China’s big population, many foreign people take mandarin as a second language. Knowing some foreign languages bring advantages for travelers and ... ... middle of paper ... ...ry, children are only taught in Mandarin, English, or Malay. For Chinese-medium schools, majority of the people communicate in the Chinese language. For Malay-medium national schools, they hardly communicate in any Chinese dialects, but mainly in Malay and some in English. Therefore, the use of dialect amongst the primary and secondary students is not popular. Chinese is a dialect that has slowly turned into a common communicating medium for most Chinese families despite their different linguistic groups. Most Malaysian Chinese teenagers aged 20 or below have lost their native linguistic tongue, most of them do not communicate in their native dialects anymore. The only people speaking their native dialects in the family is their grandparents. As a result of that, the use of the native dialect would have completely vanish as soon as the older generations pass away.
In today’s society, especially in the United States, most people are monolingual English speakers. As a result, these monolingual speakers are at a significant disadvantage compared to those who speak more than one language fluently. This disadvantage is crucial to realize since it is important to learn how individuals and the nation can be enhanced. Multilingual speakers have an advantage in global affairs that involve countries that speak different languages. Speaking multiple languages makes it easier to communicate with people when involved in foreign affairs. Those who speak multiple languages are also more aware of other cultures in society. Monolingual speakers are not as exposed to other cultures and have difficulty understanding or even recognizing them. Furthermore, being multilingual increases your
The term dialect is often mis-defined. Many times dialect is confused with accent. The documentary American Tongues defines dialect as “the words we use, and how we pronounce them.” While part of this definition is accurate, it also confuses dialect and accent. The dictionary defines dialect as “a local form of a language.” When defining accent, we look at the pronunciation of words. Accent is also seen as a way of speaking that shows the speaker’s social identity. On the other hand, dialect is often associated with a particular region or subsection of a larger language community.
Languages is the key to communicate. Everyone learns language at the early stage on their life when their parents trying to transmit some simple vocabulary to them. Communicate means we can give and receive knowledge through language. I was born and raised in Malaysia, which means I have to learn at least 3 languages which are Chinese, Malay and English as well. I would say learning few languages was actually a difficult task to complete. Although it was hard at the beginning, I have also found the fun part of learning several languages which is having the ability to communicate in few languages.
Language is one of the most basic values of a society that differentiates one society from other one. Each country desires to be superior over other countries and spread of its language and their culture to win in a way over other countries language. The growing utilization of English to communicate internationally has been continuing in several decades which makes English as one of the growing language between the countries; as Robson reported that “English is spoken at a useful level by some 1.75 billion people worldwide
One is to help develop systems of a country, for instance; Japan had its economic progress within years. Meanwhile, social lives in countries that wrongly apply globalization can be devastated. And the other is to change individual mindsets, the more I have exposed to diverse ethical groups my attitude changed. These also encompass the needs to speak different languages to assure better communication with people from another ethnic group. Nowadays, the ability to speak other languages is crucial in all societies. Speaking many languages can help smooth communication between nation states and eases the business relations. When many heads of states meet to discuss issues, it is with embarrassment for an interpreter to be in the middle to
These include Mandarin (36.3%), English (29.8%), Malay (11.9%) and Tamil (3.2%). Other languages include Hokkien (8.1%), Cantonese (4.1%), Teochew (3.2%), other Indian languages (1.2%), other dialects of Chinese (1.1%), and other (1.1) (“East & Southeast Asia: SINGAPORE,” 2016). Chinese is the predominant ethnic group with seventy-four percent of the population. Malay is the second most dominant group at thirteen percent. Nine percent of the population identifies their ethnicity as Indian, while the remaining three percent classify their ethnicity as “other” (“Country Profile - Singapore,”
Due to the rise of China’s comprehensive power and huge target market and international influences, there was a great mass fervor of learning Chinese, and more than 85 countries added Chinese lessons, covering nearly 30,000,000 students. Most of them are Japanese and Korean. The second large populations are Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese and other southeast countries’ people. The third are North Americans and European countries people. Chinese is becoming a new dominant language just after English.
According to the researcher in 2006, in term of culture as we all know Malaysia become a multi culture society of living many groups and people are different background for actually Chinese and Indian. There are 15% of Indian of Malaysia’s total population and 20% of Chinese lining in this
Although it is very difficult to actually say how many dialect exist in China, but they are categorized each into one of the seven different groups; they are the Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang, and Yue (Cantonese). The seven groups have different dialects, this is the reason why someone who speak Mandarin in the northern part of the country only understands little Cantonese and at the same time someone who is a non-Mandarin speaker usually speak the language but with a strong accent. This is due to the fact that Mandarin was established as the official national language since 1913. Although there are large difference in all the Chinese dialects, but they all share one common characteristics; they shared the same writing system based on the Chinese
This competence is crucial for today’s fast-pacing global world and it is complementing perfectly the global mindset competence. Being able to initiate as well as keep good relationship with different people is helpful from professional and personal points of view. In professional context it will help to work in multicultural environment more efficiently and in personal context will give new amazing people with different points of view, backgrounds and boost curiosity and global mindset competence. As I mentioned before, my life abroad gave me a lot of new amazing people from all over the world. They all helped me to discover new countries and cultures, showed that everything in this world is relative, that the status quo isn’t a right thing in many situations and so on. I think, my knowledge of languages helped me to score high in relationship interest competence. Being able to speak with people in their own language is helping to break a barrier between us. As I also mentioned, language is a source of culture and it is useful to know when dealing with different
Hong’s family strictly conversed in Cantonese daily, while my family mainly spoke in English and southern Vietnamese. Going to the Hong’s home at first made me feel Alienated. I would see Hong’s entire family speak in their own Language, and occasionally speak some English to me. Simple words or sentences such as, hi, hello, how are you, and good-bye were used. It was interesting to see my friend switch sides of language as soon as he stepped home.
...ons with Malay during business particularly as most of our customers are Malay. Business is important for us as minority of Kelantanese Chinese but we still maintain our own heritage for example we dine in the Chinese “non-halal” restaurant and I studied in Chinese vernacular school in Kelantan. I still feel very complicated in describing myself as either “Malaysian”, “Chinese” or in more appropriate term “Malaysian Chinese” because I have not found out which identity I more attached to either Chinese or Malaysian. Consequently the ethnicity of Malaysian Chinese is more integrated approach of three theories which means we, Chinese in Malaysia constructed suing our origins, understanding in specific context and time for us (Gudykunst & Kim, 1997; Lee, 2000). Move down the next part will be the discussion of the factor that helps to determine my cultural identity.
Language is one of the most basic necessities for human interactions in a society. Ng and Bradac (1993) stated that, “some of the most remarkable human tools are the specific languages that particular groups of human have developed and adapted for use in their daily lives” (p.1). Without language, socialization between individuals in society would be highly difficult; which would possibly result in a lack of social solidarity that ties people together. From social and academic institutions (family and school), we were taught to use the most favorable language to survive in society. Brunei Darussalam centers on the Malay and English language. Depending on the surrounding and how Bruneians were raised, the use of language may differ for different individuals. In this essay, I’ll be talking about the language that my family and I have acquired. I will also talk about the existence of bilingualism in my family and the use of different languages during travelling.
Even though there are advantages as well as disadvantages, the need for international language for communication, politics, economics and security is necessary and English is the best “language candidate” for that function. English is a language spread all over the world and it is used by millions and millions of speakers. According to my opinion, people should use English as a tool to communicate with all cultures but every country must keep their culture and language is a great part of it. In conclusion, language defines identity of a country and everyone should keep their language and explore others.
...en in symbol-based (Fang & Faure, 2011; Grumbine & Xu, 2011). In Malaysia, the official national language is Malay which is also language of the dominant ethnic group, Malay. The privilege of being Malaysian is that we did not have to assimilate into dominant group of this society. This enables us can to retain our mother tongue language Mandarin Chinese through education plus all the dialect which is all widely spoken for Malaysian Chinese. This is even applicable to those Chinese educated for other ethnic group (Azizan, 2013). I am trilingual which I can interact in Chinese, English, and Malay with Malaysian. As diverse culture country, globalisation had greater impact on Malaysia as some of Malaysian Chinese did prefer to speak international language English or national language if he/she first preference language is not Chinese (Azizan, 2013; Wan Husin, 2013).