Language choice and terminology for national development in Negara Brunei Darussalam

This paper considers the problems of development and use of new Malay terminology in Brunei Darussalam in the context of policies which have established Malay as the official language but given English a central role in the education system. While the National Bureau for Language and Literature is responsible for the creation and cultivation of new terminology and discourse, it has little influence on language use in the education system or in society generally. It seems likely that Brunei will follow Singapore in accepting English as the language of economic and commercial development, leaving Malay to fulfill a ritual and subsidiary role in which new Malay terms serve only as a passive record of equivalents.