Bahasa Melayu-Bahasa Indonesia Committee To Be Set Up By Year-End

KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 (Bernama) -- A Bahasa Melayu-Bahasa Indonesia (Malay language-Indonesian language) committee will be set up by the year-end in building cooperation to make both languages an international lingua franca. Socio-cultural adviser to the Malaysian government, Dr Rais Yatim said the formation of the committee was a follow-up to the announcement made by Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in Jakarta last month. He said the committee would play an important role as the guardian of the language heritage of both countries, besides giving a new lease of life to the championing of Bahasa Melayu-Bahasa Indonesia at the international level. "This committee is very important in building the spirit of nationhood and the Malay world. "Beginning next year, we can take several positive measures to make Bahasa Melayu-Bahasa Indonesia a language of knowledge, a language of technics and an international language," he told reporters after delivering the keynote address at the Workshop on Upholding Malay Studies 2015, here, Thursday. Rais said he was now waiting for the list of representatives from Indonesia to sit on the committee which would be announced by Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla before being forwarded to Muhyiddin. --BERNAMA