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Volume 3, Issue 9, September 2016

Dear scholars,

When talking about language, I remem-bered a friend of mine who is an Eng-lish teacher. In our WhatsApp group, she was sharing her experience marking the recent trial SPM

papers and how furious she was with some of her students who she deemed as good poten-tials and bright students. Apparently the stu-dents were using “SMS language” or “texting language” in their essays and their grades were affected just because of these minor mistakes.

Speaking of texting language, I am one guilty party as well. I think it is quite common now-adays to use it in daily communication like when writing emails and what more when texting socially or even on formal matters. But maybe because I grew up learning the correct English and only getting accustomed with the new slang and SMS language during my working life – I am able to use the right variety of language for the right context. For

example, using business jargons in business meetings, formal English in writing formal work emails or slang when I communicate socially.

I guess it will be tricky for children at this millennial era … (there is even a term mil-lennial language) as they will need to learn and apply some sense of “Appropriacy” in the choice of language (written or verbal) that they are using in different situation. Failing to recognise or losing this skill will have a detri-mental consequence such as their exam re-sults or job offers perhaps.

Technology evolves, so does communication. So, when you think about it – is it killing the existing language OR is it a new form of in-novation? We no longer use Shakespeare English for our day-to-day conversation when perhaps in the early 1900s that is the language used. What's considered "groovy" yesterday may be "dope" tomorrow. And it is not impossible in maybe 25 years from now the short forms, slangs, emoticons are widely used in communication even in business dealings. Even now new slang or words such as “biatch” is recognised and listed in the Ox-ford English Dictionary.

So scholars, do make sure you use the appro-priate language when you communicate even on social media. Just remember no matter what language we are using - the words we write or speak are an expression of our inner thoughts and personalities. And you guys are the brand of Yayasan Khazanah…. :)

p/s: Now I will need to go back and learn this Millennial Language so that I’m not lost when texting with you guys!

XOXO,

Eymie

Scholar’s Studio Ummi Nur Asyiqeen Ahmad Hanaaei Farah Aiman

In the limelight Activities & Happenings YKPSP Corner

In This Issue Highlight of the Month

From the Editor’s Desk

Mind Your Language

Mind Your Language— Profanity Is Not Good By Ummi Nur Asyiqeen bt Zulkefly, Master of Arts (English Language Studies) Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Language was created by our ancestors centuries ago with a central purpose to communicate with each other. It has continuously served the same purpose throughout the years. However, as we know, noth-ing stays the same in this universe. Same goes with language. Lan-guage back then was created with the best of intention i.e. to improve human civilization that serves beyond just as communication tools.

To mind our language means to be careful in our choice of words so that it will not offend anyone. However, despite being viewed as a taboo by society, the use of profane words continues to grow espe-cially among youngsters. Such use by youngsters has been backed up by multiple researches suggesting that one’s use of profane words infers that the person is more honest in expressing their intense emo-tional feelings - considered as healthy mental development - which makes people feel better in using those words and maybe eventually causes them to use it more frequently in their daily communication.

That is also probably why there has been constant addition of these words and that people have been getting creative in producing more and more of such words. In some cases, such words transcend lan-guage barrier. In Malaysia, curse words are either in English, Malays language, Chinese language and Tamil language are used by all rac-es. Most of them are derived from genitalia or body parts and often associated with “Mother”. Such derogatoriness clearly demoralized human civilization in a sense that it put down our own body, Mother and behavior into something disgusting.

Besides that, some other studies also suggest that the use of profanity in our speech shows signs of not only a bad habit, but also affects how people may treat us. A study by University of Arizona suggests that those who curse, receive less support from loved ones because people are sort of repelled by counter stereotypical behavior or be-haviors that is not well-received.

To conclude, according to Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language somehow influence our behaviour and way of thinking. Thus, how we use the language may affect our views and perspectives in life. Nobody in the world wants to be pessimistic and everybody in the world wants to be optimistic. One of the many ways to do so is to surround ourselves with posi-tivity and that includes usage of good words. Therefore, I believe that some things are just not meant to be well-received despite the liberal era.

You Are What You Speak!

By Ahmad Hanaaei Rafidi Form 2, Kolej Yayasan Saad, Melaka

Before you proceed reading this article, let me warn you that this will not be the usual short and sweet article but rather short and salty “Mind Your Language” article. Mind Your Language— a phrase commonly used by parents and teachers to remind and warn you to use appropriate words in order not to offend people. People will usually say “Mind your language” when someone else is saying something bad, cursing or using vulgar words. For ex-ample, Gary (a fictional character), said the “F word”. This is the perfect situation to use this phrase. So today, I’m going to talk about cursing; why do we do it, how do we do it and why do we have to mind our language?

So why do we curse? Some said as a stress reliever, some said that they curse when they experience a sudden shock (melatah in Malay), some said they do it for fun and it sounds cool when they curse! Most people said that they curse to express their emotions. People curse when they are sad, happy, scared, mad, excited. In my opinion, people curse mostly when they are mad and angry at someone or something. For example, Michael is mad at his friend, Ikmal, for stealing his girlfriend, Natasha, so he punched Ikmal and at the same time he cursed.

Other than just to express our emotions, we curse because we are

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influenced by our peers or friends or maybe even family. When we always hear people around us curse and use vulgar words, we tend to follow. Eventually, it will part of our daily communication. Although we are very well aware that cursing is bad but because we use and hear it so frequently, it becomes part of us. We get so used to it and we will think that it is normal and perfectly fine to do so. Monkey see, monkey do right!

The primary reason why we have to mind our language is because we do not want to live in an environment where people curse at each other and say terrible things about one another with no respect. As we all know, respect is very important as Allah S. W. T. has said in the holy Quran “And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disre-spect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour” [Surat Al- Isra (17) Sentence 23]. Not just in Islam but every single religion encourages their believers to not just respect their parents but also to everyone whether you like them or not.

The things we say do not only affect us but also our race, religion, society and country as we represent them all. Which means, if we go overseas, we should avoid cursing and using harsh words. We wouldn’t want our society to be disgraced just because one person said something not nice, right?

As a conclusion, we should avoid using harsh words and curse con-sidering that it is not only a sign of disrespect but it will also create trouble for people around us. Thank you for reading.

accessible medium; the internet.

Isn’t it unfathomable how almost everyone, globally can understand each other when communi-cating, thanks to the globalised English language. English, has the 2nd most number of speakers in the world after Mandarin (Ethnologue, 2016) and is one of the most commonly used lan-guages on the net and also off net.

But what impact does the language have on Malaysians in gen-eral? Many Malaysian linguists and politicians have argued that the profound usage of the English language has diminished the importance of Bahasa Malaysia amongst Malaysians which is one of the reasons for the reform of the education syllabus to Bahasa Malaysia again after Dr. Mahathir’s era. But has this reform actu-ally helped Malaysia in moving towards a more well-educated and informed nation?

A survey that was done by Jobstreet in 2015, stated that the main reason why majority of employers do not hire fresh graduates is due to lack of proficiency in the English language which caused a high retention in the unemployment category of which mostly comprising of fresh local graduates. Many have argued that Ma-laysia’s corporates are losing out through putting too much weightage on the English language as Malaysians that are not proficient in English may still excel in the workforce. But the real question is, why isn’t Bahasa Malaysia being used more predomi-nantly and why is it losing out to the English language in terms of competitive advantage?

The answer might be as simple as the contribution of the lan-guage in global technological and scientific developments. The reason why countries like Korea and Japan are still able to have subjects like Science and Math taught in their respective national languages is because Japan and Korea have contributed signifi-cantly to the development of technology in the world. It also helps that there are many academic research papers released from these countries in their respective languages, which assist in making their languages, in a way, more familiar to the global academic world. Malaysia lack in research and development publications in Bahasa Malaysia, which is why, it is not a well-recognised lan-guage in the academic world.

Malaysia also lacks global branding that can represent our coun-try.

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Mind Your Language

By Farah Aiman Ahmad Razif Bachelor of Accountancy University of Melbourne

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”– Nel-son Mandela.

Living in a boundless era where the idea of global restrictions almost seemed mythical now, especially on the virtual world where anyone, anywhere in the world can communicate through one simple

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For example, Sweden has Ikea, South Korea has Samsung and America has Apple. These global brands became these countries compara-tive advantages and put them on the map. Malaysia dominantly has Petronas, which has assisted them for decades in terms of global branding. But with the recent fluctuation in oil price, it has affected the industry itself.

So what can we take from all of this? To move forward by making English the most dominant language in the country or strengthen our national language through reformations and policies? For now, Malaysia is undergoing an identity crisis, but only time will tell if we can find a balance between patriotism and global competitiveness.

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YK 10th Anniversary Special

Interview with Saif Kenji Umemoto, Bachelor of Political Economics, University of California Berkeley

As an upcoming college freshman, I chose to be a part of the YK family after hearing about their talent management and schol-arship programme. Upon having the first opportunity to acquaint myself with the team, I realised the extraordinary degree of support and personalism that YK would come to offer. I would say that it this quali-ty that YK exhibited which was most signif-icant as a motivator for me.

The people who run YK are the very core that defines the fluidity, functionality and efficacy of the organization. I have had several challenging personal obstacles dur-ing my academic years. If it wasn't for the support and advocacy of the YK team, the achievements that I have come to garner would simply not be possible. The pro-grammes that have been offered have given

me a chance to learn new skill sets while also augmenting my relationship with both other scholars and members of the organi-zation.

YK has given me absolutely immense sup-port throughout my time as a scholar rang-ing from personal matters to career plan-ning.

I would ABSOLUTELY recommend YK to my family and friend! YK has been an absolute cornerstone in allowing me to express, de-velop and actualize my capabilities as an individual, student and citizen. There is no question that YK will be able to do the same with many scholars after me. My individual measure of achievement has always been the number of lives I am able to touch in a positive manner. Khazanah has given me the ability to develop my skills, talents as well as the right platform support and op-portunities to continue developing both personally and professionally.

My most memorable YK event would have to be the YK leadership workshop in Boston and my internship with CERU.

If I could describe Yayasan Khazanah in three words, they would be — Committed. Proficient. Steadfast.

The YK CR Day is an annual event organised by YK as part of our effort to instil leadership qualities in scholars by giving them the opportunity to run a CR programme that will indirectly help to develop their social leadership skills as well as contribute back to the society.

In this year’s particular event, YK has invited 30 orphans, aged between 4 to 17 from Pertubuhan Nur Kasih Bestari to join the programme held at Zoo Negara. The theme for this year was “Keepers of the Wild” which also aims to provide our scholars with the opportunities to create closer bonds and share their experience, knowledge, and interactive learning with the underprivileged children as well as to learn the im-portance of maintaining the planet’s biodiversity, animal protection etc.

To show our love for animal, we have also sponsored a Bornean Orang Utan for 1-year period, which covers the food, maintenance, medica-tion and other health related expenses.

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YK CR Day 2016

Engagement with

Scholars

On-boarding session with our new Asia scholars from

Bangladesh who are pursuing PhD at IIUM; From left:

Imtiaz, Tanzima and Ruhaini.

Checking on our 3 boys at UWC

U.S.A. :)

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Introducing our new scholar, Khansa

Arifah from Indonesia.

Welcoming our new scholar, Sarah Salahudin from

Bangladesh.

Yayasan Khazanah

Leadership Conference

Programme @ KYS

YK Leadership Conference (YKLC) is our annual event serves as a platform to gather our scholars at an identified venue. YKLC USA this year was held on 17 September 2016 @ Hyatt Regency San Francisco Hotel. The Conference was aimed to provide the scholars with an understanding and appreciation that leadership traits and qualities are pivotal for them. This is essentially for their own personal devel-opment and career later after the completion of studies. This year’s theme was “Unleashing the Leader in You” which was very well at-tended not only by YK scholars but also invited scholars from other scholarship programmes.

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Pro-

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Y K PSP Win ning T he Job Mark e t

Recently in September, YKPSP team had coordinated a final year module for graduating YK Undergraduates. In this module, scholars

Next Programme:

7-11 Nov. 2016

YKPG High Impact Leadership

(Putrajaya)

Do lookout for the pro-

gramme & event up-

dates from YKPSP

Team Soon!

Further queries, please email us at:

ykpsp@yayasankhazanah.com.my

This year, this module ended with another event hosted by YK Placement Unit. The event, named “YK Interactive Engagement Event” (YKIEE), is a structured informal session for YK Scholars and their potential employers to mingle and get to know one another. We have got a handful of 30 scholars altogether joining this first ever event and it was such a one of a kind experience for all!

YK Interactive Engagement Event— 30th

September 2016

To PG Scholars,

Do not forget to utilize your YKPSP

Self-Directed Learning Budget by De-

cember this year!