13.1 Introduction

Malaysia is a multiethnic and multilingual country where Chinese constitutes 24.6 percent of the total population (Department of Statistics Malaysia 2012). The Chinese started their settlement in Malaysia as early as the fifteenth century. Concurrent with this large-scale immigration, Chinese language varieties which included Chinese dialects and Mandarin were brought to the country. Due to the extensive contact with local Malays, these Chinese dialects show different characteristics from their counterparts in China. Moreover, with the introduction of modern education in the twentieth century, Mandarin has increased in importance among the Chinese community. This development has led to different degrees of language shift among various dialect groups. As a result, some minor dialects have declined while some major dialects are still dominant in certain regions. Thus, these dialects show different degrees of vitality, assessed by their usage in different domains. Changes in the linguistic ecology of the Chinese community have resulted largely from political changes in Malaysia in the past few decades. In this chapter, I am particularly concerned with the following aspects: (1) the demography and distribution in different regions of Chinese language varieties, (2) the spread and standardization of modern Chinese since the twentieth century, (3) the role of the Chinese language in education, (4) language contact due to the frequent interaction with ethnic Malays, and (5) the vitality of the Chinese language in Malaysia. Predictions of the future development of the Chinese language in Malaysia are made in the conclusion section.

13.2 Demographic and regional distribution of Chinese language varieties

The ancestors of most Chinese Malaysians came from various southern provinces in China, such as Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Therefore, the language varieties they brought to Malaysia were Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew, Hainanese, and other southern dialects (Tan Reference Tan, Lee and Tan2000). Census data have recorded the distribution of these dialect groups in the Chinese population (see Table 13.1).

Demographically, Hokkien is the largest dialect group in Malaysia, which represents more than one third of the Chinese population. Hakka is the second largest group, followed by Cantonese and Teochew. At the early stage of settlement, Chinese immigrants tended to settle down with people from the same dialect group and formed their clans to safeguard their common welfare. However, the barriers between dialect groups have been broken down as more and more intermarriages have occurred and as the mode of settlement has changed with rapid urbanization and industrialization.

As the Chinese population is distributed all over Malaysia, there is no certain association between language and region. However, as will be pointed out in this chapter, some Chinese dialects have gained a prestigious status in certain areas due to their numerical and economic advantage. Therefore, these dialects are used as the lingua franca in these areas, such as Cantonese in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, and Hokkien in Penang and Kuching (Tan Reference Tan, Lee and Tan2000). A Chinese linguistic map in the state of Perak is depicted in the Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages and Literature (Asmah Reference Asmah2004: 53). However, no further explanation is provided to this map. Further studies are needed to draw a detailed and accurate map for the distribution of Chinese dialects in Malaysia. Based on the literature available, the distribution of Chinese dialects in Malaysia is identified (see Table 13.2).

The association between dialects and regions is dynamic as Mandarin has gained more domains of usage in recent years. As reported by Wang (Reference Wang2012), Mandarin was used in 90.9 percent of the business transactions in markets in Johor Baru, where Teochew was the dominant dialect before. This implies that a high extent of language shift has taken place in Johor Baru. The spread of Mandarin is one of the factors leading to such drastic changes in the linguistic ecology.

13.3 Spread and standardization of modern Chinese since the twentieth century

Modern Chinese was introduced through education in Malaya in the 1920s, a response to the promotion of Guoyu, the national language, in China. Education was the first domain in which Mandarin was used to replace various other Chinese dialects as the medium of instruction in Chinese schools. According to Hou (Reference Hou1919: 32), Mandarin was the medium of instruction for Grade 3 and 4 and Hokkien for Grade 1 and 2 in Yu Cai School in Penang in 1919. Gradually, Mandarin expanded its usage into other domains such as mass media, business, and even family. Wang (Reference Wang2005, 2009, Reference Wang2012) carried out a survey on the spread of Mandarin in the State of Johor in 2004 and 2005. The results indicate that Mandarin is being extensively used in public settings and at home in Johor Baru, Batu Pahat, Muar, and Kluang. Among the 585 respondents from the above four cities, 84.8 percent claim that Mandarin is their most frequently used home language (Wang Reference Wang2012: 71). Hokkien and other Chinese dialects have drastically declined in Johor. The significant factors leading to the spread of Mandarin include the influence of Singaporean mass media in Mandarin and the popularization of Chinese education in Johor (Wang Reference Wang2012: 53–8). Singaporean TV programs which are in Mandarin and English only are not accessible beyond the border of Johor (Wang Reference Wang2005). Therefore, the impact of mass media from Singapore is restricted to Johor only, the closest state to Singapore. The dominance of Mandarin is also observed in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, although to a lesser extent and with Cantonese as the prestige dialect (Wang Reference Wang2010). A recent development of Mandarin in Malaysia is that more and more non-Chinese Malaysians have shown interest in learning Mandarin due to the rapid economic growth in China. In view of the popularity of Mandarin, the Ministry of Education started to offer Chinese as an elective course in national primary schools in 1996 (Zheng Reference Zheng2010).

Chinese is also visible in the Malaysian linguistic landscape as an important avenue to present Chinese identity, especially in Chinatowns. According to a linguistic landscape study in Kuala Lumpur Chinatown (Wang et al. Reference Wang, Riget, Shoniah, Yi Chern and Omar2015), Chinese scripts appear on 70.9 percent of the signs (N = 388), out of which 42.5 percent use Chinese as the dominant language given that Malay is compulsory for all commercial signs and must be in a bigger size than other languages according to the municipal regulation in Kuala Lumpur. The high prominence of the Chinese language in public spaces is because of the fact that language is the most important marker for the Chinese identity, and Chinese Malaysians share the common belief that maintaining the Chinese language is crucial to their Chineseness.

As Chinese is not an official language in Malaysia, there is no official agency in charge of its planning and standardization. However, Chinese is the medium of instruction in national-type Chinese primary schools which were integrated into the national education system in the 1960s. Therefore, the standardization of the Chinese language has been implemented through education since independence. Generally, it follows the standards in China but at a slower pace. For instance, the simplified Chinese characters and Hanyu pinyin were adopted in Malaysia in 1982 with the introduction of KBSR (New Curriculum for Primary School) while these two reforms were launched in China in 1956 and 1958, respectively. After the adoption of simplified characters and Hanyu pinyin, the traditional characters and Zhuyin fuhao were abandoned in education. However, traditional characters are still in use in Chinese newspapers, advertisements, and even personal names. They are still popular in shop signs. Wang et al. (Reference Wang, Riget, Shoniah, Yi Chern and Omar2015) report that 64.4 percent of Chinese signs in Kuala Lumpur Chinatown use traditional characters as they are strongly associated with Chinese roots and culture.

Despite the lack of support from the government, the Chinese community founded a Chinese Standardization Committee which was composed of representatives from various organizations such as newspapers, schools, publishers, and linguists in 1997, and restructured and renamed as the Chinese Language Standardization Council of Malaysia in 2004. The main objective of this council is to promote standard Mandarin in Malaysia. The standardization of the lexicon is one of its achievements by standardizing the Chinese translation of place names and personal names of non-Chinese origin. Recently, they introduced the Putonghua Proficiency Test from China which aims to promote standard Putonghua in Malaysia. What has been neglected is that there are some differences between Malaysian Mandarin (Huayu) and Chinese Putonghua in terms of pronunciation and lexicon (Wang Reference Wang2013). For instance, the neutral tone and retroflexed final –r are seldom pronounced in Malaysian Huayu while they are common in Chinese Putonghua. Therefore, it is negotiable whether Malaysia should fully follow the standard of China or not. Variation in the Chinese standard language does exist across different Chinese regions, a fact which should be acknowledged locally and internationally. The publication of The Dictionary of Global Huayu (Li Reference Li2010) is a good start toward the maintenance of linguistic diversity, which records the differences in Chinese standard language(s) in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and other regions. Guo (Reference Guo2002) compares the lexicon in Putonghua, Singaporean Mandarin, and Malaysian Mandarin, and makes a harmonization proposal to deal with the differences among the three varieties.

13.4 The role of the Chinese language in education

The history of Chinese education in Malaysia can be dated back to 1819 when Wufu shuyuan, the first Chinese school, was founded in Penang (Tan Reference Tan1997). Since then, Chinese education has undergone great changes over the years. It has developed from old-style Sishu which was set up by various clans or dialect associations and taught Chinese classic texts in a traditional way, to new-style schools which adopted a new curriculum teaching geography, physics, and other modern subjects. These new-style schools were more Malaya-oriented rather than China-oriented and started to use Mandarin as the medium of instruction to replace various dialects. No matter how complex the external environment has been, the Chinese language has never been abandoned by Chinese schools until today. This can be regarded as one of the characteristics of Malaysian Chinese education. The sustaining of the Chinese language in education is due to the belief that language is the essential component of Chinese culture and identity (see above). As far as the role of the Chinese language in education is concerned, there are three different situations in Malaysia: (1) Chinese language as the medium of instruction, (2) Chinese language as a subject, and (3) Chinese language as a second language.

Presently, Mandarin is the medium of instruction in all national-type Chinese primary schools in Malaysia. All subjects except Malay and English are taught in Mandarin in these schools, which are an integral part of the national education system. Currently, there are 1,294 Chinese primary schools in Malaysia with a total student population of 591,121 (cf. Dongzong website 1). It is estimated that over 90 percent of Chinese students enrol in these Chinese schools. At the secondary education level, Mandarin is used as the main medium of instruction in Chinese independent schools (Duzhong), which are private schools financed by the Chinese community. There are sixty such schools with a total of 70,266 students, some of which are open to international students such as the Han Chiang High School in Penang (cf. Dongzong website 2). At the tertiary education level, Mandarin is the main medium of instruction in three Chinese colleges, which were founded by the Chinese community. Therefore, it is possible that a student can go through his/her entire education in Mandarin in Malaysia. Malaysia is the only country outside mainland China and Taiwan where this can be found.

The second role of the Chinese language in Malaysian education is that it is offered as a subject in schools. Due to historical reasons, there are two types of national secondary schools in Malaysia. The first type is the national-type Chinese secondary schools which were converted from Chinese secondary schools by the government in the 1960s (Tay Reference Tay2003). One of the conditions for their conversion was that the Chinese language must be taught in these schools. There are seventy-eight such schools all over Malaysia. The second type is the national schools whose medium of instruction is Malay. In these schools, Chinese is offered as a subject if at least fifteen parents make a request. However, the offer of Chinese classes will depend on the availability of teaching staff, which is under the control of the Ministry of Education. Table 13.3 presents a comparison of the Chinese subject between these two types of schools.

The third role of the Chinese language is that it is offered as a second language in national primary schools. This program started in 1996 and expanded in 2003 with Malays and Indians as target students (Zheng Reference Zheng2010). According to Nanyang Siang Pau, there were 350 Chinese classes offered in national schools in 2009 (www.nanyang.com/node/221298).

13.5 Language contact due to frequent interactions with ethnic Malays

The interaction between Chinese and Malays could be traced back to the fifteenth century, when the majority of Chinese immigrants were male, a situation which resulted in intermarriage with local Malay women. Their offspring formed a unique group of Chinese, Baba (men) and Nyonya (women). As most Babas were of Hokkien origin, they spoke a variety of Hokkien, which was heavily influenced by Malay, especially at the level of lexicon (Tan Reference Tan, Lee and Tan2000). Loan words are borrowed bi-directionally, that is, from Malay to Hokkien and from Hokkien to Malay. The direct output of this deep and frequent language contact is the formation of Baba Malay, a creole with Malay as its superstrate and Hokkien as its substrate. Many scholars have analyzed its grammatical structure and phonological and lexical characteristics (Shellabear Reference Shellabear1913; Tan Reference Tan1980; Pakir Reference Pakir1986; Thurgood Reference Thurgood1998 among others). Most scholars claim that the grammar of Baba Malay is influenced by the Chinese language. For instance, the possessive marker punya, which is frequently used in Baba Malay, is influenced by the possessive structure in Hokkien (Shellabear Reference Shellabear1913). With the decline of the Baba community, Baba Malay is seldom heard in Malaysia. However, Bahasa Pasar or Bazaar Malay, a pidgin Malay, is extensively spoken by all ethnic groups. It is a mixture of Malay, Chinese, and Tamil.

The influence of Malay on the Chinese language is mainly manifested at the lexical level. Most loan words from Malay are nouns which are associated with food, religion, and other cultural concepts or activities. Table 13.4 shows some examples of these loanwords.

Most loanwords are adapted phonetically and contain changes that fit in with Chinese syllabic rules. For instance, when Datuk is borrowed into Chinese, the –k final stop is dropped because there is no final stop in Mandarin. There are also hybrid loanwords which combine both phonetic and semantic adaptation such as 巴冷刀 (parang). 刀 is attached to 巴冷 to indicate its semantic meaning. These words reflect the lifestyle in Malaysia, which is not shared with other Chinese-speaking regions.

These Malay words are also borrowed into various Chinese dialects such as Cantonese (Chen Reference Chen2003; Wang Reference Wang, Zhang, Zhang and Chen2007). Wang (Reference Wang, Zhang, Zhang and Chen2007) collected 293 loan words from Malay and English in Malaysian Cantonese and categorized them according to their type and part of speech. The main findings are that over 90 percent of these loan words are phonological loan words which undergo phonetic adaptation and almost 80 percent of them are nouns. Besides, level tones are attached to the borrowed syllables, which differ from their tones in Cantonese. Consonant replacement is also found in loan words such as the replacement of [r] with [l].

In a similar vein, Chinese language varieties are also influenced by English and Tamil, the major Indian language in Malaysia, but to a lesser extent. Besides, there are still many pidgin languages which have not yet been studied, such as the Hokkien dialect spoken by Kelantan Chinese, which is heavily influenced by the Kelantan Malay dialect.

13.6 The vitality of the Chinese language in Malaysia

Fishman (Reference Fishman1972) predicts that immigrants will undergo language shift within three generations. Chinese Malaysians, however, seem to be an exception, as the Chinese language varieties are still extensively spoken at home and in public spaces. To a great extent, most Chinese Malaysians still maintain their heritage language in addition to having proficiency in Malay, the national language, and English, the second most important language. According to a survey on language choice and language attitudes among Chinese secondary school students in Kuala Lumpur (Chong and Wang Reference Chong, Wang, Siew Ling and Xiaomei2009), Mandarin and Cantonese are the absolutely dominant home Chinese dialects (see Table 13.5).

Although Chinese language varieties are maintained in the family domain, intergenerational differences are observed in their language choices. The general trend is that Mandarin is gaining importance and Chinese dialects are losing ground to Mandarin, the result of sociolinguistic realignment (Wang Reference Wang2010). Minor dialects are undergoing shift toward either Mandarin or Cantonese, the prestige dialect in Kuala Lumpur. It is worth noting that older sibling patterns are very much like their parents, while younger ones reflect more strongly recent changes, with the exception of changes in English.

The use of the Chinese language is also found in public domains such as markets, food centers, and shopping centers. According to a study conducted in the State of Johor (Wang Reference Wang2009), Mandarin is used in 71.5 percent of business transactions between salespeople and customers while Hokkien is utilized in 22.1 percent of these interactions (N = 201). The conclusions are as follows: (1) Mandarin is dominant in public settings. (2) The more formal the setting is, the more Mandarin is used. (3) Age is a significant factor for language choice. The younger the interlocutors are, the more Mandarin is spoken. (4) More female customers tend to utilize Mandarin in public settings than males (Wang Reference Wang2009: 220).

The vitality of the Chinese language is also observed in the linguistic landscape. Wang and her research team (Reference Wang2013) carried out a linguistic landscape study in Kuala Lumpur Chinatown and found out that Chinese is used extensively in monolingual (54 percent), bilingual (76 percent), and trilingual (97 percent) signs (Table 13.6). Although it is regulated that the size of Malay text must be bigger than that of any other languages on public signs by the Kuala Lumpur Municipality, the Chinese language is dominant in 42 percent of the total signs (N = 388) in the main street of Kuala Lumpur Chinatown. The dominant usage of Chinese scripts on public signs is an indicator not only of linguistic vitality but also of Chinese identity.

Several factors contribute to the high degree of vitality of Chinese languages: (1) demographic factor, (2) status factor, and (3) institutional support factor (Mohan and Wang Reference Mohan and Wang2012). There is a large Chinese population in Malaysia which constitutes almost one fourth of the total population. Population size is definitely a positive factor for language maintenance. Although the Chinese language has no official status in Malaysia, it has a high economic value, as the Chinese population plays a significant role in the Malaysian economy. The salient economic status does have a great impact on the vitality of the Chinese language. Moreover, the Chinese language has received strong institutional support from education and mass media. Chinese schools use Mandarin as the medium of instruction. Chinese newspapers have a large readership in Malaysia. Chinese radio and TV programs are also popular in the Chinese community. All these factors in combination have led to the maintenance of the Chinese language and culture.

13.7 Future development of the Chinese language in Malaysia and concluding remarks

The evolution of the Chinese language in Malaysia has undergone several stages in the past centuries. It started with the monodialectal stage when Chinese immigrants were only able to speak their own dialect from their hometown in China. Once they began socializing with other dialect groups, they learned the prestige dialect in their region and became bidialectal. For instance, if this process happened in Malacca, Hokkien was the local lingua franca. If this occurred in Ipoh, Cantonese was the regional lingua franca. Among the early Chinese immigrants, the Baba formed a special group of Chinese, who spoke Baba Malay, Hokkien, or English (Tan Reference Tan, Lee and Tan2000). They are the so-called Peranakan Chinese (Tan Reference Tan1997). The pure Chinese or the mainstream Chinese, who are in contrast to Peranakan Chinese (Tan Reference Tan1997), also learned Malay when they socialized with ethnic Malays. After Mandarin was introduced through education in the 1920s, Mandarin gradually became part of the linguistic repertoire. Therefore, a multilingual capacity is commonly observed among Chinese Malaysians. They could speak their ancestral dialect, regional prestige dialect, Mandarin, Malay, and some English. After the 1980s, Mandarin became more prominent due to the economic development in China and the establishment of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China. Singapore, the neighboring country, launched the Speak Mandarin Campaignin 1979. Similar movements were also found in Malaysia, which promoted Mandarin in public domains. One of the consequences of the promotion of Mandarin was that the younger generation started to speak Mandarin at home and gave up their ancestral dialect. Consequently, language shift took place and minor dialects such as Hainanese and Foochow went into decline (Wang and Chong Reference Wang and Chong2011). Today, it is not uncommon to find that some young Chinese Malaysians are not able to speak any Chinese dialect. What is expected from them is to be trilingual and triliterary in Mandarin, Malay, and English.

If there is no strong language planning imposed on the Chinese language in the future, Malaysian Mandarin will retain its regional characteristics which differ from other varieties such as Putonghua in mainland China, Guoyu in Taiwan, and even Huayu in Singapore. It will be used in more domains within the Chinese community and replace other dialects as the lingua franca among Chinese Malaysians. A diglossic situation will come into being after other dialects further decline. Mandarin is for formal usage and regional prestige dialects for informal occasions. What underlies these changes is the subtle shift of identity among Chinese Malaysians. The strong identification with respective dialect groups has been substituted by the pan-Chinese identity (Tan Reference Tan1997), which is associated with the use of Mandarin.

As long as Chinese education is retained in the national education system, Mandarin will maintain its vitality in Malaysia. During our recent fieldwork in Penang, many interviewees commented on the future of Mandarin in Malaysia, which they believe depends on the economic growth in China. In their perception, the Chinese language has already become one of the international languages, which they are proud of. Most interviewees hold a positive attitude toward Mandarin. They contend that speaking Mandarin is essential to the Chinese identity and culture. This positive attitude will facilitate the intergenerational transmission of the Chinese language and the maintenance of the Chinese language at large.