KUALA LUMPUR, April 21 — Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) will organise an International Symposium on Bahasa Melayu, from May 22 to 24, to discuss the use of Bahasa Melayu or Malay as the second language in Asean.

Its chairman of the board of governors, Datuk Seri Prof Dr Awang Sariyan said the symposium was  organised based on a suggestion by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

"We will open spaces as wide as possible for all parties including friends from Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia,Thailand, and others to sit and discuss this matter together.

"Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), the number of speakers (presenters) has reached dozens from the United States, Europe, East Asia, Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia and so on,” he said.

Awang said this while being on a panel of ‘Minda Profesor Negara: Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia: Apa Ada Pada Nama?’, organised by the National Professors Council (MPN) which was posted live on Facebook today.

According to Awang, the symposium is among the strategies to ensure that a variant of Bahasa Melayu that is used by Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, and Singapore be further strengthened to achieve the goal of elevating the language as the second language of Asean.

Prior to this, Ismail Sabri had proposed the use of Bahasa Melayu as the second language in Asean in an effort to elevate the country’s official language at the international level.

Earlier this month, Indonesia’s Education, Culture, Research and Technology Minister Nadiem Makarim was reported to have rejected the proposal in favour of Bahasa Indonesia as a better choice as the official language of Asean as it is widely used in Southeast Asia, with its use spread across more than 47 countries. — Bernama