Jawi is the new thing in KL
The KL City Hall is on a mission - it wants to encourage Middle Eastern tourists to the city.
Actually DBKL is on a double mission - it also wants to propagate the prime minister’s pet Islamic Hadhari concept in the capital city.
And how does the DBKL completes its missions?
Simple. It just replaces old road signs around the city with new ones that carry road names in Jawi.So far, DBKL has completed its mission in Bandar Tun Razak, Taman Seputeh and Taman Tan Yew Lai. In the process now is Jinjang. Please note that the last three residential areas are predominantly Chinese.
Naturally few questions arise:
- How many people can read Jawi, including the postmen?
- How many Arab tourists are going to visit residential areas? And what attractions are there for them to see, apart from rows and rows of houses? I have never seen Arabs tourists in Jinjang!
- And if it is to benefit the Arabs, why use Jawi and not Arabic?
- Just for the sake of it, why not Chinese and Tamil languages as well?
- Finally, what is Islam Hadhari? Is it something which alienates the rights of the non-Muslims in this country? The last I heard, it was supposed to be an all-embracing concept which promotes oneness and universal values!!
Both the Star (Feb 4) and The Sun (Feb 11) had carried stories about this new Jawi road signs, indicating that there are grouses from ground level.Both stories had response from DBKL - yesterday’s Sun quoted an official saying that the new road signs offered “a chance for the non-Muslims to know and learn Jawi”. (see right)
How? By merely looking at the road signs? She must be out of her mind. But let’s not blame her.
It’s the problem of all government officials trying to bodek the PM by promoting his Islam Hadhari, whatever it means.
Labels: abdullah ahmad badawi, malaysia, media, politics
posted by Kabilan K at 5:09 PM
2 Comments:
And the stupid thing is, Arabs won't even understand Jawi, since Jawi is just Malay written in the Arabic alphabet.
Which makes me wonder.
If the road name is to be made in Chinese and Tamil, will the name be the direct translation of, lets say, " Taman Seputeh " or simply a transliteration in Chinese and Tamil script ?
I mean, will it be translated into Chinese and Tamil like the English translation for it would be, White Garden Road ?
Since the name of a place is unique, be it Uttar Pradesh or Kaoshiung, I believe that if it must, it has to and should only be a transliteration and no more. No translation is to be allowed, at all.
Thus Jalan Taman Seputeh should sound like " Jalan Taman Seputeh " be it in Jawi, in Chinese or even in Tamil, no matter what scripts or characters are used to represent the sound.
Thus, Jawi, being a phonetical alphabet should be readable enough though might not be understandable ( which is in this case, unnecessary ) to the Arabs, thus I should say that DBKL indeed got a point there !
Would you agree ?
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