Saturday, October 25, 2008

Jawi is different from Arabic - Improved Communication not politicking please...

With regard to Street signs and other important information boards/publications in Malaysia - it should not just be in Bahasa Melayu - but also English, Chinese(Mandarin), Tamil...Maybe, we should also have some in Jawi writing.

Why? Because those are the languages that people in Semenanjung Malaysia are familiar with.

In the case of Sabah and Sarawak - the local languages should also be used.

The important thing is communication - i.e. to be able to convey necessary information to the people of Malaysia (and maybe even the tourists/migrants in our country.) Talking about migrants - maybe Urdu should also be included in signages, as this will cover migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and India. Oh, we also have Vietnamese and Burmese...

Arabic - why? Is it for the Arabic tourists coming to the country. Maybe, what the Penang Municipal council is talking about is Jawi - which was the original written form used for Bahasa Melayu...

By December, tourists visiting Penang’s heritage enclave will be greeted by street names in multiple languages.

The state executive council approved the Penang Municipal Council’s application to put up the road signs in different languages at its meeting here yesterday, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said.

“I want to stress that the original Bahasa Malaysia signs will not be removed. We are just adding new ones in Chinese, Tamil and Arabic, to complement the existing signs. - Star, 25/10/2008 -Road signs in various languages


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