Housing Ministry Faces Backlash from M’sians After Writing Shah Alam as “Sah Ale” in an FB Post

The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) caused quite a stir online recently for a post on its official Facebook page promoting the upcoming National Landscape Day 2024 at Taman Tasik Shah Alam in Selangor’s capital city of Shah Alam.

This is because the official Facebook page wrote Shah Alam as “Sah Ale” in the text post, which garnered backlash from some Malaysians who criticised KPKT for not using proper Bahasa Melayu.

KPKT caused a stir by writing Shah Alam as Sah Ale

For reference, Sah Ale is how Shah Alam is pronounced in the Kelantanese dialect, which is a meme among Malaysians online given the large Kelantanese population in the city.

Nevertheless, the colloquial language usage in the Facebook post was divisive. While some Malaysians criticised the informal Bahasa Melayu usage, others praised it for attracting more people to notice the post which in turn further promoted the Landscape Day 2024 event.

The original post

However, it seems that those who criticised the usage of Sah Ale had their way in the end as KPKT temporarily made the post private following an influx of comments calling the Ministry out.

Nevertheless, the post is now public again, albeit edited with the proper Shah Alam spelling.

The post after being edited by the admin

Based on the edit history of the post, KPKT posted the original text with Sah Ale at 10.34pm yesterday (21 May) but ended up changing it to Shah Alam at 12.50pm today.

Malaysians are divisive on the informal language usage

In the comments section, many Malaysians were divided on the colloquial language usage, with both sides giving their 2 cents on the matter.

One commenter called for the KPKT Facebook admin to be more professional, stressing that they should use proper Bahasa Melayu for the official account. This sentiment was shared by many others in the comments section.

Conversely, many others urged netizens not to be so serious and said that the usage of Sah Ale in the post is a genius marketing strategy.

One commenter joked that suddenly there are so many formal Bahasa Melayu lovers online just because KPKT wrote Sah Ale instead of Shah Alam.

Another commenter said that this is an excellent marketing strategy as people won’t even notice the post if it was written formally. Besides that, another commenter praised the Facebook admin for understanding the social media algorithm and even asked KPKT to give the admin a raise.

Meanwhile, another commenter joked that KPKT had to Kelantan-ise the post to get many likes.

The KPKT official Facebook page replied to the comment, saying that they don’t just want many likes but want to promote the upcoming National Landscape Day 2024.

With that being said, the National Landscape Day 2024 celebration will be taking place at Taman Tasik Shah Alam from 24 May until 2 June.

So, what’s your opinion on the matter? Are you planning to go to the event? If so, see you there in Sah Ale!

Also read: “Mooncakes on CNY?!” – M’sians Call Out Govt Dept for Mistaking CNY With Mid-Autumn Festival