BAHASA JIWA BANGSA

Yesterday, in the bloggers chat room, Suanie raised her concern and displeasure at what she termed as the "anglicisation" of Bahasa Malaysia words. "Bajet" was cited as an example. I thought "belanjawan" is a good term for "budget". Some wise persons gave the reason that budget is not just "belanja" and budget covers both income and expenditure. The accountant in the room disagreed. He said "belanjawan" covers both. I had to concur because I know nuts about accounting and is doomed to facing deficits all my life.

Back to Suanie. She has a point. Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka took great pains to get the right terminology for many words in many activities, including business and finance. Even for new fields like IT, there are official words to use. Hence, there is "perisian" for software and "perkakasan" for hardware. Harddisk is "cakera padat", mouse is "tetikus" and I am typing all these on my "papan kekunci" which you all know as a keyboard.

As Suanie pointed out, not many people use the Bahasa terms. They are more comfortable with the English. We "konar" and we "gostan". We hardly "belok kiri" (or kanan). Neither do we "undur ke belakang".

Tell me why that is so.