I still remember during my primary school until university years in Malaysia, every so often the teachers (even my father) will emphasize and remind us about the importance of learning and mastering English. There were (I think most probably still up until now) some generalization that people who can speak/read/write good English must be brilliant and they were look up to.
Of course it is always a good thing to learn another language but unfortunately some narrow minded people like to ridicule and treat other languages (usually from undeveloped/developing countries) or even their own mother tongue as "low class". Well there are many factors contribute to that but most probably due to the legacy from centuries of westernization and colonization of mind.
In the Quran, Allah mention:
عَلَّمَهُ ٱلْبَيَانَ
"(55:4) and has taught him articulate speech."
To put things to simple context here all languages (and of course everything in this whole universe) is from God, so why must we ridicule God's creation?
Currently, the worlds information is at the tip of our finger but it is still not sufficient if we only search them in English. Having living and working in Japan for >8 years, I notice that many information can only be search or discover when we use the original Japanese technical terms.
It is always interesting when you try to grasp the meaning and origin of some words and this time I have compile some fairly similar idiom/preverb meanings from English, Bahasa Melayu, Japanese and Chinese:
1) English: Blow one's own trumpet
2) Bahasa Melayu: ماسوق باکول اڠکت سنديري (Masuk bakul angkat sendiri)
3) Japanese: 手前味噌 (Te mae mi so)
4) Chinese (Mandarin): 吹牛 (chui niu)
All the idioms/proverbs above is generally use to describe when someone is trying to boast about themselves but each language uses different subject which closely related to different and unique culture setting. English with their trumpet, Malay with their basket, Japanese with their miso (fermented soybean paste) while Chinese with their cow.
From the link below you can check at some of those interesting origin of those idiom/proverbs:
1) https://blog.kano.ac/2019/03/05/temae-miso/
2) https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1000/meanings-behind-%E5%90%B9%E7%89%9B-and-%E6%8B%8D%E9%A9%AC%E5%B1%81
If humanity still exist for the next several centuries (Wallahu'alam), I reckoned the global culture gap will become narrower then ever, so does that means each surviving language will come up with new idioms/proverbs that could be easily comprehend by all people at that time?
手前味噌ですが、below is the presentation link for the ITA tunnelling awards 2022:
(3 March 2024: Let us hope the genocide in Gaza will end soon and all the war criminals will be brought to justice. Salam (Peace))
