The above chart shows the different types of mother languages spoken by our respondents

from the East Malaysia. From the chart, mandarin is the mother language spoken by most of our
respondents which amounted to 37% of our respondents. Besides, there are also a lot of Malay
language and native language speaker which occupied 16% of our respondents. Other mother
languages speaker made up 27% of our respondents.
This has shown that there is a variety of languages are being spoken in Malaysia. No doubt
this is because Malaysia is a country embrace plurality and racial integration without forceful
language assimilation. Even though the national language is Malay language, it can be clearly shown
that shown that respective mother languages from different races are still being spoken and
developed in Malaysia.
18%
37% 18%
27%
Types of Mother Languages
Malay
Mandarin
Native Language
Others
Language

The above two pies shows a clear comparison between the levels of usage of their mother
languages while at home and while in Peninsular Malaysia. Overall, it is obvious that the level of
usage of their mother languages have dropped significantly.
From the pies, there are initially 69% of the respondents who use their mother languages all
the time but this figure has dropped drastically to 16% after they came to Peninsular Malaysia. The
significance here is there are some factors that caused 53% of the respondents stopped using their
mother languages all the time as they were at their home.
From other perspective, the percentage of respondents who never use their mother
language has increased from 6% to 11%. The interference that can be drawn is there is an increase
of 5% among the respondents who never use their mother language while they travel from East
Malaysia to Peninsular Malaysia.





Not at
all
6%
Rarely
7% Quite
often
9%
Always
9%
All the
time
69%
How often do you use your
mother language at home?

Not at all Rarely Quite often
Always All the time
Not at all
11%
Rarely
22%
Quite
often
22%
Always
29%
All the
time
16%
How often do you use mother
language in Peninsular
Malaysia
Not at all Rarely Quite often
Always All the time



After understanding the phenomena that a lot of respondents stopped using their mother languages
after some time living in Malaysia, we will now analyse some possible contributing factors to this
phenomena.
The first possible factor is the difficulties that faced by the respondents in their daily communication
with the locals. Surprisingly, there are 16 respondents felt that they have no difficulty at all to
communicate with the Peninsular locals while only 1 respondents felt that he has difficulty. This
show that the majority of the respondents do not have problem or predicament communicate with
the Peninsula locals despite their difference in mother languages. The possible explanation for this is
the Peninsula locals and the respondents from the East may have their communication conducted in
national language therefore less difficulties arise.
The second possible factor is the respect of the Peninsula locals towards their mother languages.
The chart showed that only 2 respondents felt that their mother languages are not respected while
there are 15 respondents hold the contrary. This showed that the Peninsula locals have positive
attitude towards the mother languages of their counterparts from East Malaysia.
The third possible factor is the ability of the respondents to pick up a new language while they are in
Peninsular Malaysia. There are 0 respondents are in the opinion that they are not capable to pick up
a new language. Majority of the respodents are confident in their abilities to pick up new language
while in Peninsular Malaysia.

0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
1 2 3 4 5
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

R
e
s
p
o
n
d
e
n
t
s

Levels
Factors that Contribute to the Lack of Usage of Mother Language
Level of difficulty in communication Level of respect towards mother languages Ability to pick up a new language