On language equality

I would like first of all to congratulate your newspaper for the excellent coverage of language issues. The report of March 14 in The Jakarta Post (ASEAN leaders advised to back campaigns for Malay) shows once more how political leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must be continually prodded to take a more proactive stance toward Asian languages, including Malay, a language spoken by approximately 250 million people in Asia.

That the ASEAN does not yet treat Malay equally alongside English is a disgrace. It is also very indicative of how the dominance of English is growing even many decades after decolonialization. The World Esperanto Association has for many years been concerned by the increasing effects of such linguistic inequality on economic and social life in Asia.

On the same day as your report appeared, on the Malay Linguists call to ASEAN leaders, the Economist Intelligence Unit published their forecasts for foreign direct investment. Among the top nations are the United Kingdom and the United States. And among the list of factors favoring the UK given by the Financial Times is the English language.

Another effect of the almost exclusive use of a national language (English) for international communication is in the field of education. Asia has excellent universities. However, resources and top students are continually being sucked away to English speaking countries. Last year 546,867 students studied in the U.S. alone. Asian students comprised over one half (55 percent) of all international enrollments (302,058, up 8 percent). Compared to the 59,939 Chinese, 54,664 Indian, 46,497 Japanese and 45,685 Korean students, Malay-speaking countries may not be the top money spinners for U.S. universities (at around 20,000 U.S. dollars per student).

Nonetheless, the 11,625 Indonesians and 7,795 Malaysians studying at U.S. universities, not to mention Australia and the UK, do represent a continued cultural and economic loss for education systems in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Only an effective and long-term policy of promoting true language equally, not just a single national language, can help solve this problem. The experience of the World Esperanto Association, sadly, indicates that politicians generally have little understanding of the vital importance of language equality.

RENATO CORSETTI

President of the World

Esperanto Association

Italy