The Malays of Brunei: an investigation of their family language policies

ABSTRACT

Studies on Brunei Malay have made inconsistent findings: while some have asserted that this variety is thriving and is in no way endangered, others have found that its use is now waning. As the dynamics of family speech can inform what is happening linguistically at the community level, this study seeks to investigate the family language policies of the Brunei Malays by assessing parents’ language ideologies, practices and management strategies. This is done via a survey involving 178 ethnically Malay parents. The overall results paint an unpromising picture of the future of Brunei Malay, shaped by the parents’ weak beliefs on this Malay variety, and defined further by their home language practices and management strategies. The majority of the Brunei Malay families are bilingual, but English features prominently in most investigated items. The findings reveal that the parents are motivated to maintain Brunei Malay but have little confidence in their abilities to pass down the home language to their children. That a majority agrees for the introduction of lessons on Brunei Malay in schools is an indicator that the home domain is no longer adequate for the maintenance of this Malay variety.

KEYWORDS:

• English in Brunei
• family language policy
• language ideology
• language maintenance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this paper, attempts will be made to specify which of the two Malay varieties are being discussed, whilst the general term ‘Malay’ will be used in instances which would include both Standard and Brunei Malay.

2 The texts are Standard Malay but written in Jawi i.e. Arabic script.

3 This arrangement reflects the state's official stance as to which language is considered more important.