Language policies in Malaysia and Singapore

マレーシアとシンガポールにおける言語政策

Language policies in Malaysia and Singapore

Creators Miyaoku Masamichi

Both Malaysia and Singapore used to be British colonies, but their language policies became different from each other after their independence. In 1957, when Malaysia became independent, the government of Malaysia adopted Malay as the national language in Malaysia and allowed people to use Malay and English as official languages for ten years. On the other hand, in 1965, when Singapore became independent, Singapore decided to use four languages, English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil, as official languages. The government of Singapore encouraged people to become bilingual, speakers of both English and one of three languages, Malay, Chinese, or Tamil. People in Singapore, however, gradually have tended to use English mainly. As a result, Singapore has become famous as an English speaking countries. We would like to discuss three points. At first, we would discuss why Malaysia and Singapore adopted different language policies. Secondly, we would like to analyze how the difference of language policies in both countries has influenced societies in both countries. Thirdly, we would like to find out how the difference of language policies in both countries changed their attitude and consciousness toward their languages.

[ISSN]0387-9232

[NCID]AN00031668