Gender Bias in Malay Language

Abstract

—Language reflects the speakers of a community. The characteristics and background of an individual or society are assessed through the spoken word and forms of language. There have been many studies conducted by scholars who study foreign languages (particularly English and European languages as spoken in the United States of America (USA), Germany and Norway). The Chinese language has also been assessed by a number of scholars. Many sexist elements have been found in the Chinese language (in particular, in older forms of the language.) Unfortunately, even many language users agree that male terms sometimes fail to be gender-neutral and may therefore be a cause of sex bias as well as a vestige of past inequality, few studies have been conducted that serve to highlight the sexist elements of the Malay language. In this paper, proverbs with sexist elements will be discussed to prove that the said elements do exist in Malay language.