THE BABA-NYONYA LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY OF THE BABA-NYONYA SOCIETY IN MELAKA

The Baba-Nyonya society is a minority ethnic group in Malacca. This society’s language is unique because although their roots are Chinese but they do not communicate in the Chinese language. They on the other hand communicate through the usage of Baba-Nyonya language, which is known as kreol. Thus this research intends to study the language proficiency amongst this society members as an effect of economic factor and through change of time. Besides, this research also intends to capture the language proficiency between the older and younger generation of Baba-Nyonya. This research was carried out in Malacca. The research design of this research is a mix mode of qualitative and quantitative. Questionnaire, interview and observation were the research instruments in data collection process. This research shows that the language proficiency amongst the Baba-Nyonya society members has detoriated especially among the the younger generation. This phenomenon is due to the fact that the majority of them are now more dominant in English and Mandarin.The result also shows that the attitude and perception towards the Baba-Nyonya language by it’s society members are positive although the language is less spoken by them. In general, the findings of this research is an added knowledge on minority language, and in specific the Baba-Nonya Language. This documentation is an important work in minimizing the knowledge gap in the context of Baba-Nyonya language in Malaysia.