The level of awareness towards mother tongue among university students case study: UiTM Kota Kinabalu, Sabah / Hasnih Juanis and Liyana Saidin

University students nowadays arc focused on the international language dial can give them competitive advantage in employment markets and them proud to use English language in their daily communication rather than used their own mother tongue which has high value as the heritage from people before. They mostly less aware on the home language or can be define as mother tongue in communication. The most famous language that has been used in the university system as communication language and learning language is English Language. However, too much influenced by the English language can make university student forget about their heritage and family history. This kind of trend not fit with the Malaysian culture whereby the government promote to retain of the Malaysian culture that has variety of ethnics especially in Sabah and Sarawak. This study was conducted to investigate the level of awareness among university students towards their mother tongue. The sample collected in this study was selected randomly and the questionnaires were distributed 100 students in UiTM Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The findings showed that the university students are moderate which somewhat aware on practice their mother tongue. Besides that, the three factors that influenced level of awareness are moderate which consist family background, university environment and students lifestyle.