Malaysia’s call for Asean to embrace its national language irks critics and Indonesia

PM Ismail Sabri says there are many native speakers across Southeast Asia, a position that views all Malay languages as essentially the same and one that Indonesia disagrees with

His campaign has prompted criticism on his political priorities, suggestions he is trying to cover up his lack of confidence in English, and accusations of pandering to Malay voters ahead of an election

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Malaysia’s PM Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo at the Merdeka Palace in Jakarta. Photo: EPA-EFE/Indonesia Presidential Palace

Published: 7:00pm, 6 Apr 2022Updated: 7:39pm, 6 Apr 2022

Could Malaysia’s national language one day become Southeast Asia’s de facto second language after English? Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob hopes so, in a controversial stance that has raised eyebrows over his political priorities and led to accusations that the Malay nationalist leader is fishing for votes ahead of an election due by 2023.

Ismail Sabri first made known his intentions in February during a visit to Thailand, where he delivered some speeches in Bahasa Malaysia instead of English, as his predecessors Muhyiddin Yassin, Mahathir Mohamad and Najib Razak would have done.

“There is no reason for us to feel awkward speaking in Bahasa Melayu in other countries, when others are proud of using their national languages,” he said after the trip, using a catch-all term for the Austronesian language that is spoken in different forms across the region, from Malaysia to Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and parts of East Timor and Thailand. In Malaysia, the terms Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Malaysia are used interchangeably to refer to the Malay language.

Various versions of Malay are spoken across Southeast Asia. Photo: AP

Malay is the national language in Malaysia and Brunei, and also has that symbolic status in multi-ethnic Singapore, where English is the lingua franca. Bahasa Indonesia, the variety of Malay widely spoken in Southeast Asia’s biggest country, is its national language.

Since his Bangkok trip, Ismail Sabri has doubled down on his ambitions for Malay. Addressing the country’s upper house on March 23, he noted that there were native Malay speakers in at least eight of Asean’s 10 member states.

This was reason enough to make Malay the second official language of the bloc, Ismail Sabri suggested. “There is no reason why we cannot make Malay one of the official languages of Asean,” he said, adding that he would float the idea to countries that already used Malay as a working language.

Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia’s Minister for Education, Culture, Research and Technology. Photo: Bloomberg

Fighting talk

The leader’s remarks have elicited raised eyebrows at home, with critics questioning his interest in the matter at a time Malaysia was experiencing economic stress and other significant challenges.

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