Competition Way to Expand Malay Language Usage.
THE Language and Literature will be organising more competitions for youths in its efforts to expand the use of the Malay language as the official language of the country as stated in Brunei Constitution of 1959. Speaking at the prize presentation ceremony for the Mekar-Juara Essay Contest 2008, Dr Mataim Bakar, director of Language and Literature Bureau said the competition was one of the activities carried out by the bureau in its effort to realise the country's aspiration to preserve language sovereignty and disseminate its use by encouraging youths to write articles in Malay. He said that youths are the main target of of the competition because hopefully they will continue to use the Malay language and proud of it. The contest, he added, is also to further enhance the youths proficiency in Malay so that it remains to be the language spoken at home and a "family" language. In doing so, he added, Bruneian will still feel they are living in this country and not in the W