Bangsa Malaysia , I do not agree with what you said about Abdul Hadi Ali . Among the reasons why people do not stand up for what they believe in is because they fear personal attacks from people such as you.

Instead of questioning Abdul Hadi Ali's maturity, one should point out the mistakes in his ideas. For all you know, he is an eight-year-old boy. However, I do agree that the contents of his letter are childish.

Also, to the others who had 'praised' his command of English, one just has to read his last sentence to realise malaysiakini's involvement in that matter.

In Abdul Hadi Ali's defence, I do agree that Bahasa Malaysia is a threatened language. The language itself is not spoken outside of Malaysia, and if nobody was forced into learning it, we'll end up with only Malays having any grasp of this language.

And before anyone points out that Indonesia speaks BM, I want to mention that Bahasa Indonesia (BI) is not BM, and that BM is just derived from BI, and not the other way around. Must have been somebody's idea of a joke to have changed a couple of words and call it a new language.

As far as I'm concerned, one can survive in Malaysia today without any grasp of the national language. The only use of the language, even in Malaysia is if you wanted (or needed) to work for the government or in a Malay community. For this single reason alone, if Darwin's theory is applied here, BM would not have survived.

For a language to survive, there must be a reason for it to be learnt. The people speaking the language must offer a reason for outsiders to learn it. Without any reason, any language will eventually be wiped out by another, more commonly spoken language.

Patriotism will ensure survival of the language, if only it can be kept up. From the response of the last Hari Merdeka, Malaysians seem to lack even this.

Shoving a language down someone's throat will not secure the survival of a language. I am a living testimony of that, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.