KUCHING: Sarawak Patriot Association (SPA) has called on the Chief Secretary to allow civil servants to continue using multiple languages at work.
Its chairman Datuk Dr Lau Pang Heng emphasised that language is but a tool of communication to understand each other.
“I can remember when I was in primary school, my father used to write to the council in Chinese. And he received a reply in written Chinese language too.
“People feel at ease when they can choose the language they use to communicate with government authorities,” he said.
Having that in mind, he said the English language is one of the most widely spoken languages and is by far the most commonly studied foreign language in the world.
“Civil servants need to master at least another language that is widely spoken globally so that when investors come to Malaysia to invest or do business, government officers can communicate with them fluently.
“We cannot ask foreigners to learn our language first before they can invest in Malaysia. They will choose another country to invest in rather than in Malaysia. And Malaysia will lose out in terms of competitiveness,” he said.
He stressed that if civil servants are penalised for using or speaking English, it could become troublesome to officers from the International Trade Ministry.
“These people would have to communicate in Bahasa Malaysia with foreign countries. Unless foreigners can speak Bahasa Malaysia fluently, SPA doubts if we can get any business deals from overseas.
“Not only that, we will lose foreign tourists when officers at the Tourism ministry communicate with them in Bahasa Malaysia. These tourists will choose other destinations when they cannot speak our language,” he stressed.
“Numerous studies have shown that a new language can change how the human mind pulls information together, hence, enabling bilinguals (and even multilinguals) to have more than one perspective on a particular issue.
“Say, for decision-makers, this may facilitate negotiations and the ability to see both sides of an argument and different points of view. Being bilingual can also improve performance, better memory, and increased confidence.
“This is why multinational companies are looking to employ more bilinguals and also equip their workforce with global language skills they can use in the workplace and upon interacting with customers and clients such as those in healthcare and finance,” he said.
Taking Sarawak as an example, he stated that the people in Sarawak treasure languages as most people can speak Bahasa Malaysia, Iban, Mandarin and English.
“We are multilingual. English is one of the official languages, it is widely spoken, and it is one of the official languages in the Sarawak Legislative Assembly. It is a language spoken in court too.
“That is why, even though SPA respects and supports the use of Bahasa Malaysia to strengthen the use of the language, we cannot forget that English is the most spoken language in the world,” he added.
