COLLABORATIVE INITIATIVES TO MANAGE MALAY LANGUAGE RESEARCH

One hundred years ago, western scholars finally realized that the Malay language had a documented history as old as the English language. The study of Malay should then have followed the procedures and methods developed for studying other major languages of the world. But, instead, narrow nationalism coupled with hyperprescriptivism has emerged as the trademark of Malay language studies. In this brief paper, we will explore observations by outsiders about Malay in the region and consider the contrasting narrow and bounded scope of contemporary research about the Malay language. The importance of devising a management program for transdisciplinary and transnational collaborative research projects needs to be emphasized, not as an exploration of the past but as a blueprint for the future.