{"id":563,"date":"2007-06-06T09:44:57","date_gmt":"2007-06-06T14:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/06\/localization-ms_my-represents-bahasa-malaysia-now"},"modified":"2007-06-06T09:46:56","modified_gmt":"2007-06-06T14:46:56","slug":"localization-ms_my-represents-bahasa-malaysia-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/06\/localization-ms_my-represents-bahasa-malaysia-now","title":{"rendered":"Localization: ms_MY represents Bahasa Malaysia now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve never been a big fan of localization, especially in the Malaysian context. After all, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Malay_language\">Malay<\/a> (ms_MY) is a bit of a sham. The proponents choose to believe that Bahasa Melayu is spoken in Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia, and is rather an important language. Till the proponents realize that Indonesia has a rather thriving population speaking Bahasa Indonesia (granted, for technical terms, ms_MY and Bahasa Indonesia are quite similar). <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Singapore\">Singapore<\/a> speaks English, while acknowledging BM, Tamil and Mandarin as national\/official languages.<\/p>\n<p>For a language that is spoken by at most 30 million people, most of whom can converse (i.e. read, write, speak) in English well, I find the translation effort a waste of time. Granted, there are a handful of stubborn people that refuse to go global, and learn to converse in English in Malaysia, because they believe the national agenda to be all important &#8211; these are the exact folk that will be left in the doldrums in the much touted K-Economy. Its okay, I&#8217;m sure the government will find some way to bail them out while <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Petronas\">oil money<\/a> is still hot.<\/p>\n<p>My purpose of this blog isn&#8217;t to bash the Malay language or translation efforts. Its to announce that I finally see a glimmer of hope as to why the translation might make a tiny speck of sense. Its not Bahasa Melayu or Malay. Its <strong>Bahasa Malaysia<\/strong>. For something that&#8217;s been around <a href=\"http:\/\/thestar.com.my\/news\/story.asp?file=\/2007\/6\/4\/nation\/17923478&amp;sec=nation&amp;focus=1\">since last April<\/a>, I wonder why it hasn&#8217;t <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.limkitsiang.com\/2007\/06\/04\/restoration-of-bahasa-malaysia-welcomed-but-why-the-sheepish-surreptitious-selective-announcement\/\">taken on<\/a> further?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><span class=\"text\"> \u201cThe Malay language belongs to Malaysians of all races and not just the Malays. The term Bahasa Malaysia would instill a sense of belonging,\u201d Zainuddin told The Star yesterday.<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<span class=\"text\"><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span class=\"text\">Of course, Malaysia should look upon Singapore when it comes to recognizing national languages&#8230; The article also blames Anwar Ibrahim, the ex-DPM who had an affinity for backsides, for the change when he was education minister, back in 1986. How timely. If this is for national unity, I&#8217;m all for it. I then see the value in ms_MY. Translate away to Bahasa Malaysia!<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Technorati Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/ms_MY\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">ms_MY<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/localization\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">localization<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/bahasa%20malaysia\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">bahasa malaysia<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/bahasa%20melayu\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">bahasa melayu<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/malay\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">malay<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/language\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">language<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/national%20language\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">national language<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/malaysia\" class=\"performancingtags\" rel=\"tag\">malaysia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve never been a big fan of localization, especially in the Malaysian context. After all, Malay (ms_MY) is a bit of a sham. The proponents choose to believe that Bahasa Melayu is spoken in Singapore, Brunei, and Indonesia, and is rather an important language. Till the proponents realize that Indonesia has a rather thriving population [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-95","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}