Majority and minority language planning in Brunei Darussalam

This paper is an overview of language planning as carried out in Brunei Darussalam for Malay, its official language, English, its de facto other official language, and for the other eleven minority languages spoken in the country. After a general introduction to the country and its sociolinguistic situation, the paper outlines the main language planning activities carried out in Brunei through corpus, status and acquisition planning. The overview of status planning includes a brief description of the linguistic landscape of Brunei. The second part of the paper discusses the advantages of education using the students’ first language, something that is not happening in Brunei, and the future of education in the country after the introduction of the new education reform (SPN21). The paper closes with some general remarks on the importance of maintaining minority languages and some suggestions on how this can be achieved.