Does FB Causing Language Distortion???

Tongue-Tied: Is Facebook hurting Thai Language?


Bangkok: Facebook and Twitter are being blamed for the poor language skills of Thai students – and the Culture Ministry is suggesting a return to the bygone tradition of writing letters.

          A national survey conducted by the ministry found that four out of ten Thai youths think “proper Thai” should only be used at formal occasions.
         Roughly a third of Thai youths are not concerned about the misspellings, abbreviations and grammatical mistakes that are common in text messaging and social media conversations.
        “We must preserve our national language. If nobody sees its importance, then we’re doomed,” Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombut said on Thursday, while announcing the results of the survey.
        “Writing on facebook, twitter and mobile phone messages distorts the language,” he was quoted as saying by the Thai Post newspaper.
         He added that more should be done to encourage writing letters the old-fashioned way.
        “Nowadays, kids do not write letters anymore. They forget the correct way to write.”
         The survey polled 6,500 youths over age 13 nationwide.
         His comments came ahead of Thailand’s national language day, which will celebrated on July 29.
        “Sometimes, I don’t understand what Thai kids are saying in their mother tongue,” the culture minister said.
       “But our duty as government is to conserve the good parts of the Thai language.”

(Taken from The Star, 24 Jul. 10, Saturday)

        What so fascinating with this article from The Star. It just what happened in Thailand where a survey conducted showed that youngster nowadays seem to use language improper way.
        Then, what about our Bahasa Malaysia? Do we concern about it? As we all known, facebook has become a phenomena. The user of this social site has been increased day by day.
        However, the trend shows that a lot of user of the facebook use the language in improper way of writing. It doesn’t a matter to use abbreviation as it is used to enable quick and easy writing. The point is to use the language correctly according the spelling of the word. If need to write in short form just use the right way of abbreviation.
        For instance, the word ‘boleh’ just shortened it as ‘bleh’ and not ‘bley’ as the first form is derived from the word ‘boleh’. The second one consist letter ‘y’ which is not from the original word. Thus, this wrong way of making abbreviation will result in distorting and destroying our motherhood language later on.
        What we afraid of is the people especially those kids will be influenced to use this way of writing in their daily writing including in the formal writing. Lastly, I hope that all of us could start using the right way in using the language. If we do not care about our own language, then who shall care of it. ‘BAHASA JIWA BANGSA’
-Tokdin Tuman, 24 July 2010-
http://tokdin.blogspot.com/