Board set up to help cope with rapid language developments<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The seventh National Congress on the Indonesian
\nlanguage concluded on Friday by issuing an action plan which
\nincludes the establishment of an advisory board to cope with
\nrapid change in the language.<\/p>\n
Around 800 domestic and foreign experts who attended the five-
\nday congress discussed dozens of papers identifying obstacles to
\nthe development of the language. Many of the discussions centered
\non the influence of political oppression during Soeharto's New
\nOrder regime on the development of the language.<\/p>\n
The language advisory board proposed by the congress would
\nconsist of linguists, scientists and public representatives with
\nan interest in language and literature.<\/p>\n
\"The board's duty would be to give advice, solicited or
\notherwise, to the state Language Center to upgrade the role of
\nthe center,\" said Hasan Alwi, who presided over the team which
\ndrafted the congress recommendations.<\/p>\n
The board will be formed shortly after the results of the
\ncongress have been submitted to Minister of Education and Culture
\nJuwono Sudarsono, he said.<\/p>\n
\"It is expected to become a permanent board and will be
\nenacted by a ministerial decree.\"<\/p>\n
\"We are in a hurry here to cope with rapid developments in the
\nlanguage as we approach the new millennium,\" Hasan said.
\n\"Therefore the congress also calls for a national gathering to
\nrevise the language policy first enacted 23 years ago in the 1975
\nnational seminar on language politics.\"<\/p>\n
Hasan cited technological terms such as 'computer' and 'mouse'
\nas examples of words which have been adopted into the Indonesian
\nlanguage without much prior consideration.<\/p>\n
\"Rather than thinking hard to find the Indonesian words for
\nsuch terms, we simply started to use the words 'komputer' and
\n'mouse'... we could not possibly called (the latter) 'tikus' (the
\nliteral meaning of mouse).\"<\/p>\n
The congress also called for a review of political elements of
\nthe language and said it would introduce a list of 80,000 terms
\nmade by experts from various disciplines.<\/p>\n
Literature professor Sapardi Djoko Damono said, however, that
\npeople tended to use words with which they were already familiar
\nand pointed out that the government would need to launch a
\nspecial campaign to promote new terms such as tengarai (suspect)
\nand mantan (former).<\/p>\n
More popular versions of the two words are mencurigai and
\nbekas respectively. (edt)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/board-set-up-to-help-cope-with-rapid-language-developments-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}