Attitude, Understanding and Identity of Negeri Sembilan Malay Dialect Speakers

National education system has always emphasized on the standard variety of a language which inadvertently causes an impact to the ‘local’ variety or dialect. Therefore, a study was undertaken on one of the local dialects in Malaysia, specifically the Negeri Sembilan dialect. The study looked at the attitudes of the Negeri Sembilan dialect speakers towards the dialect and their understanding of that dialect. This paper aims to present the findings on the attitudes and understanding and their relation to the identity of the dialect speakers. By utilizing sociological urban dialectology approach, the study utilized the interview and questionnaires methods. The study was conducted in the district of Rembau in Negeri Sembilan. The interviews were conducted with 7 old informants in order to build a word list of archaic or words of Negeri Sembilan origin. This wordlist then formed a part of thequestionnaire which was distributed to 373 respondents. The selection of the respondents was based on four social variables, namely; gender, age, social economic status and location. However, this paper only concentrates on age variable. Generally, the findings of the study show that the respondents in the higher age group have a more positive attitude towards the dialect and they also have a higher level of understanding of the dialect.