ery.djunaedy

My language, your language, our language

In Indonesia, 28-Oct is commemorated as the Youth Pledge Day. On this day in 1928, there was a congress held in Jakarta attended by various youth organizations in Indonesia. This congress that was seen as an important milestone towards Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch colonial government, because this congress introduced a new platform in the struggle of independence: Indonesia. The term Indonesia was officially recognized as a uniting entity among different cultures within the archipelago.

At the end of the congress, the youth made the famous three pledges that despite their different cultures and origins, they pledge for one motherland: Indonesia, one nation: Indonesia, and pledge to uphold the uniting language: the Indonesian language.

I do not actually very interested in the romantic historical overview of the event. What is interesting is how we, as a nation, uphold our national language in the world withough borders as we live today. What upholding means for us?

Two options pop in my mind: (1) guard its purity against linguistic contamination, or (2) use it as we wish.

The first option will see us defend our language against silent attacks by frequent use of foreign language terminologies. Our reaction would be a frantic attempt to translate all absorbed idioms and terminologies to Indonesian. Here are some examples taken from an email sent to a mailing list (words in italics have been absorbed and transliterated into Indonesian):

akselerasi: percepatan
asimilasi: pembauran
audio visual : pandang dengar
babysitter : pramusiwi, pramubalita.
buffet : prasmanan
briefing : taklimat
coffeebreak : rehat kopi
konsisten : taat asas
komitmen: keikatan
konsepsi: rancangan
cultural gap: senjang budaya
cultural shock: gegar budaya
cross reference : rujuk silang
degradasi: kemunduran
distorsi: pemiuhan
display : peragaan
demonstrasi: unjuk rasa
eksplisit : gamblang
eskalasi: peningkatan
face-to-face : bersemuka
fermentasi: peragian
fly over : jembatan layang
fly pass : jalan layang
frekuensi: kekerapan
infiltrasi: perembesan, peresapan
interpretasi: tafsiran
[and many more]

I do not have a particular objection to this kind of interpretation of upholding the language. My only comment is that how pure do we want it to be? Indonesian is a dialect of Malay language, which has long been a lingua franca in the region. Naturally, if a language is spoken by many nations, then there will be absorption of foreign words into the vocabulary. Why couldn’t we just take those words, especially the ones that has been transliterated into Indonesian spelling, as Indonesian words? After all, some of the English words listed above are given Arabic words as the alternative, not “pure” Malay words which is the origin of Indonesian language. Why do we change English words in favor of Arabic, Sanskrit, or Javaneese words?

Another example is the word “formulir”, which means “form” as in “application form”. We took it from the Dutch word “formulier”, and we are OK with it even though there is a Malay word for it: “borang”. Is it because we do not want to use Malaysian word because it sounds strange, even though it is an original Malay word? Linguistic puritanism should have its own limit as to how pure it is that we want.

The second option for us is to simply use the language. That alone constitutes upholding the language, even if the language transforms in its use. As my Indonesian (language) lecturer said that if you want to know whether a word is Indonesian or not, simply refer to the Indonesian Dictionary published by the Language Center. If the word is used by people, it will be there, she said, and if it is there, it is Indonesian word.

Of course, as in the first option, there should be a limit as to how far the language is allowed to transform.

The Malay language is known to have different versions between the spoken and written form. However, the difference between Melayu Pasar (the spoken “street” Malay) and the written Malay is nothing compared to what happened today.
The spoken language has become horribly non-standard. Just listen to the people talking on the streets, especially the teens, and you will be surprised how different they sound from the standard Indonesian language. The younger generation Indonesian seem to feel cool if they can speak strange language.

Even worse, the gap to the standard Indonesian is not only occurs in the spoken language, but started to happen in the written language. An email was sent to a mailing list where the sender put the word “Piss” in place of “Regards” before her signature. I honestly have to think about what it means before realizing that the word means “Peace” transliterated into cool Indonesian word “Piss”. Its a swing of association to the extreme. In “peace” you would associate sanctity and tranquility with it, while in “piss” you can only think about toilet.

The same phenomena is also observed by my friend Judhi in Singapore. He took a picture below that captured the same concern: strange language make us difficult to communicate. Why was “Nasi Lemark” written there when it should be “Nasi Lemak”? Is it because English speaking people will pronounce it more correctly than the original word? You read Judhi’s observation here. He is spot-on to point out that the food items on the list are not Muslim food. They are Malay food, but they have nothing to do with being Muslim food, or non-Muslim food for that matter. Being a Malay food does not make it a Muslim food.

The linguistic problem reflects communication problem. We cannot communicate effectively. This is a problem of course, but this is not the scariest part of it. Linguistic problem reflects jumbled thought, this is the monster problem. You cannot think effectively without adequate language capabilities. I do not realize this until I read Oliver Sacks’ book Seeing Voices (I will write another article about this).

What lies ahead of us is the combination of the two options above. Use the language as we wish, and at the same time keep it from abandoning its identity as Indonesian language. Instead of speaking half-Indonesian-half-English, why not just speak English if you feel like it. Like this article discussing Indonesian language in English!

Please enjoy my older article in this topic (this one is in Indonesian).