Is The National Language Bahasa Melayu Or Bahasa Malaysia?

0 Sara Smith July 21, 2025

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Is our national language known as Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia? The confusion is not your fault, but it’s stemmed from years of name flip flopping by the government.

To understand how we reached this point, we must first learn how Bahasa Malaysia came to be.

Under Article 152(1) of the Federal Constitution, the national language is known as Bahasa Melayu.

However, when Malaysia was formed in 1963, the language was switched to be known as Bahasa Malaysia.

The reason? The name change to Bahasa Malaysia was hoped to foster unity among the many ethnic groups in the country.

Then another change came again in 1986 when the Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad government changed it to Bahasa Melayu.

It was back to Bahasa Malaysia again under Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration.

So, where does that leave us?

There is a strong call by linguists and experts to refer to the national language as Bahasa Melayu.

According to Malay Mail, Malay linguistic expert Datuk Asmah Omar said a country’s language is not named after the country, but must be named after the speakers.

To further prove the point, Malaysian Linguistic Society president Nor Hashimah Jalaluddin said there’s no British or Australian language but English. Hashimah added that it’s not Indian language but Tamil, Hindi, and so on.

Mohamad Saleeh Rahamad, from UM’s Department of Media and Communication Studies, added that the name change to Bahasa Malaysia didn’t exactly encourage many non-Malays and Malays to take up or appreciate the language. The ostracism and stereotype towards the national language remains.

Experts also believe the language should be known as Bahasa Melayu to preserve the Malay culture and heritage.

With not many Malaysians speaking the Malay language correctly and speaking English more, there are fears that Bahasa Melayu will be lost.

Previously, there have been calls to empower Dewan Bahasa Pustaka to uphold the standards of Bahasa Melayu and strengthen the national language.