Cakap Melayu

The non-Malay speaking members in the house!

I feel so ashamed... my kids can't speak Malay, especially Tasnym who with her pelatness somehow completely changes the word altogether... poloh-poloh?

I thought that I had it covered, speak English at home, speak Malay at my mum's and learn more Malay in school... surely that would be enough... until I realised that even my mum got drawn to speaking in English as they refuse to respond in Malay... and the teacher in school faced exactly the same problem... and to think that the girls actually attend an Islamic Montessori where most of the kids are Malay... and yet they dun speak Malay! Worse yet, to my amusement as I watched the girls play with their friends, at a recent birthday party, they actually speak English with an accent... dun ask me American, Australian or British... sounds like a complete rojak to me! I could only roll my eyes in response!

So I decided something needed to be done before my kids start failing Malay in school. Malay? How can you even fail Malay? My cousin's son did precisely that and it spurred me into action. So Saturday became speak Malay day... where I would not respond if they don't speak in Malay... you should see the look of dismay on Tasnym's face and exasperation on Sarah's! It even silenced them from talking as they figured it would be much easier to just remain silent that to say anything at all!

I would say that 2 weeks down the road... my effort has borne some fruit as Tasnym now speaks a little more Malay than she used to in her short 4 years of life! They still sound very odd though...: )

As for Daniah, I don't even know what language she speaks... a possible cross of some tribal stuff that requires every twist of the tongue... and the funny thing is she will speak complete sentences just that we have no idea what she just said!