Kuala Lumpur - Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is not anti-English, its director-general Datuk Dr Firdaus Abdullah said yesterday.
Malaysians, he said, should learn to master the English language but not at the expense of Bahasa Malaysia.
"We are not anti-English but what we want is for all Malaysians to master the English language and at the same time speak fluent Malay.
"We don`t want to become a slave to the English language.
"We want Malaysians to speak good Malay and promote the national language as an instrument of understanding," he said after flagging off the National Language and Literature Month expedition at the Menara DBP today.
"We conduct some 540 language courses every year to uphold the Malay language but at the same time we also give importance to English.
He said Malaysians should be proud of Bahasa Malaysia as it was a language of unity and was instrumental in helping the country to gain independence from colonial rule.
"Without Bahasa Malaysia, we would not have gained independence. For this reason alone we should be glorifying the language."
Firdaus lamented the increasing usage of bahasa rojak creeping into the Malay language.
"We don`t encourage the use of mixing Bahasa Malaysia with other languages, for instance English, because it does not promote bilinguality effectively. Malaysians must be able to speak more than one language but each language must be spoken fluently. "
Source: www.nst.com.my (6 September 2007)