Investigating language and religiosity in Brunei

Abstract

The inexplicable link between the Malay language and Islam has been well-documented in Malaysia. In Brunei, however, this association has not been made explicit and could only be inferred through the state’s stance of utilising only the Malay language for Islamic-related matters, most conspicuously in the Islamic education curriculum. While this practice has been in place since the early days of Islamic education in the country, the changing linguistic situation in Brunei, where English is now more popular than Malay among the younger generation, may require some rethinking of this practice. An earlier study investigating the issues of language and religion in Brunei has found that those who are more English-inclined do not identify strongly with the Muslim identity as their Malay-leaning counterparts. Taking its cue from those findings, the present study extends the investigation in two ways: one, by adding the social variables age, gender and educational background in its analysis; and two, by focusing on the notion of religiosity rather than on religious identity alone. The findings show that age and language proclivity are both predictors of religiosity with older Bruneians displaying greater religiosity than the younger ones. Language also plays a factor such that those who are predisposed to using more English than Malay have fewer manifestations of practices aligned to the Islamic teaching. Gender and educational level, however, have low factor loadings and are not contributory to the measurement of religiosity.