More Malaysians reading Wikipedia in English than in BM, Chinese

When conducting research for his Master’s thesis in 2015, researcher Daniel Chong found that more than 60 percent of Malaysians read the English edition of Wikipedia as opposed to those in Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese.

According to Chong, a media and cultural studies lecturer at The One Academy, there are socio-historical reasons to explain this inclination.

“Parts of Malaysia were administrated by the British for over a century. In that time, English became associated with the educated and wealthy class of society living in urban areas.

“The influence of the British and the English language continued throughout the early independence period as it was achieved with relatively little bloodshed.

“Even after British influence waned, American culture and politics continued to impact the country,” he told Malaysiakini.

Chong also believes that the English edition of Wikipedia is popular among Malaysians because the language plays a major part in the education system.

“Malaysian education over the decades has offered English as part of the curriculum and as a required test subject.

“(In addition,) many tertiary private educational institutions offer their courses exclusively in English,” he said.

Chong added, however, that improving the Bahasa Malaysia edition of Wikipedia could increase learning opportunities for Malaysians and anyone else interested in learning the national language.

“I heard from some people that by flipping between different editions of an article (on the left-hand column of Wikipedia) or a Wiktionary entry, they gain a more solid grasp of another language.”

English is a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools throughout Malaysia.

The EF English Proficiency Index 2017 ranked Malaysia 13th out of 80 countries for English proficiency among non-native speakers.

The report showed that 61.07 percent of the population speak English as an additional language, putting Malaysia second out of 20 Asian countries included in the report. -Mkini