'Don't you ever write in Malay?' A friend of mine earnestly asked, for the umpteenth time. Well, how does one reply to that, when for sure an honest answer would have rendered me liable to some kind of tort action (libel and/or slander) for deliberate defamation of my own mother tongue.

Now, don't get me wrong. I hailed from a kampung, and minus the fact that I happen to be allergic to belacan, budu and/or tempoyak, nothing could change the fact that I am as Melayu as one could ever hope to be.

No amount of legal jargon, court attendances, corporate exposures and what nots could change that fact. I'm a proud Melayu. And a proud Malaysian, by all means.

And despite lingering reminiscence of being a recipient of an English prize during my secondary school days at MCKK, I would still be the first one to proclaim that my English is, to put it mildly, seriously lacking.

It's an acute example of `the more you know, the more you know what you don't know'. Or something like that lah.

So, who am I to forget my mother tongue? It's just that sometimes I'm simply at loss to find a good Malay word to express the way I'd like to say things. And, by the looks of it, some people share the same boat as me.

Otherwise, how would you explain (let alone justify) them unabashedly combining two English words `information' and `entertainment' in order to (lo and behold) produce a new `Malay' word `infotainment'?

Multi-lingual populace

I take great pride in having a cousin (yes, it's you, Najib) who can converse well in seven languages (perhaps it's ten by now, brother).

However, being no scholar in linguistics myself; I cannot dismiss this nagging thought at the back of my head that I do know several languages as well. Perhaps all of us do.

Consider this: to start with, most of us know Malay. And English. And for a few of us, another mother tongue plus a smattering of Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Indian, Urdu and/or Malayalam. For fewer still, some Thai, Tagalog, Japanese and/or French (swear words excluded).

Congratulate yourselves. That in itself would have numbered more than three.

Then, as far as I'm concerned; I have a Malay (and I'm not talking about dialects here) that I use when I'm addressing my parents. And a different kind of Malay which I use when I talk to a Chinese. And still a different one which I use when I address an Indian.

Additionally, I also have this special English which I use when I speak to Malaysians (it's now even officially called Manglish laaaaah, you know what!); and a different kind of English, which I reserve for native Englishmen.

And last but not least, a different English peculiar to those non-native English speakers (now that we have so many Arabs and South Africans here).

Is it only me; or do Malaysians in general always bend backwards when it comes to speaking to others? We always go out of our way to accommodate our listeners, as if we should be embarrassed if our listeners cannot understand us due to their own shortcomings.

I've never encountered an Englishman trying to imitate our so-called Manglish (or Singlish laaaaah, for that matter) to facilitate our comprehension. He'd rather let us wonder if his stiff upper lip is a condition, symptom or a disease.

Pure Malay

So are we ourselves guilty of polluting our language? Why don't we just speak Malay the way it is supposed to be spoken? If circumstances do not permit, then it's better to use another language, than risk polluting our beloved language further.

Therefore, not using Malay should not be seen as being un-Malaysian, or unpatriotic. I for one would very much love to use Malay as far as possible, but sometimes things get so complicated that we end up frustrating ourselves.

For instance, have you noticed how the government departments (pre-GLCs) have a knack of making things look so official? Not necessarily to sound legal; but simply 'official'. You would know what I mean if you have had to fill out forms in court, at the land office or even the religious departments.

You would inevitably stumble upon words, which you never knew existed in the Malay language. Is it you that has been ignorant?

I had resigned myself to accepting those funny words as necessary evils in order to make things 'official', until one fine day when I asked my paralegal to translate from English to Malay an affidavit in an accident case.

I was nearly fuming when I saw his work, and was about to accuse him of forgery of his Advanced Diploma in law, when he meekly produced a legal dictionary published by nothing less than our very own Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka.

Under the entry state of injury (the phrase that was in the affidavit), the purported legal translation was: `negeri yang tercedera'.

What could a plain citizen do?

Such brazen indifference acts like a silent killer to any language. Sometimes such seemingly sleazy translation work ultimately creeps its way into blind acceptance.

Thus, should we feel a sense of euphoria or sheer annoyance over the abundance of words borrowed - or perhaps stolen - from other languages like interlokutori, ejakulasi, transnasional and transeksual?. Should we feel proud of our semangat kebangsaan or of our semangat nasionalisma?

Still on the subject of borrowing words, I recall a time in the not too distant past, when most Malay linguists worth their salt were so proud in using words taken from Bahasa Indonesia as the bahasa rumpun nusantara.

So we were made to think that we breath a lot of class when we say kamar and kantor instead of our very own, albeit dull sounding, bilik and pejabat. And poor me; I was so proud to use those in my primary school essays, thinking I was 'one step beyond'.

Even as an adult I used to hold dearly to those words and continued to be proud to say kamar mandi instead of bilik mandi or the more simple and general word tandas.

Until quite recently when I was in Amsterdam, Holland (or is it Belanda?) and saw placards all over saying Kamar Te Hur and Kantor Te Hur (meaning `room to let' and `office for rent'). Bahasa Nusantara? Help

Perhaps language is really meant to be universal after all. To transcend the borders of race and nations. Be too casual about it, and a whole race risks losing its identity.

Try too hard; and we would end up like that proverbial man who learned to read Braille just so that he could read books to the blind. Or perhaps tomorrow I should simply tune to Radio Orang Asli to learn a few native words.

Thus add another language, hence another feather in my cap...
Zaim Al Amin is a lawyer by profession. Currently attached to an oil, defence and aviation company, he retains his childhood passion for writing, often contributing to magazines, bulletins and journals. He jokes that writing boring articles is his way of overcoming bouts of insomnia.