40m Indonesians cannot speak 'Bahasa': Expert
40m Indonesians cannot speak 'Bahasa': Expert
JAKARTA (JP): As the government prepares to launch a campaign encouraging the proper and correct use of the Indonesian language, a linguistics expert has claimed that as many as 40 million of the country's 193 million people have no knowledge of the national language.
Bahasa Indonesia, the country's official language since 1928, is still not known by a large segment of Indonesian society, Anton Moeliono said.
The citizens who cannot speak the Indonesian language have become part of a "marginalized community which cannot enjoy the fruits of 50 years of Indonesia's independence as yet," he said, as quoted by Antara.
Their inability to understand Bahasa, he said, caused them difficulties in using the telephone, watching television and local movies and in reading Indonesian publications.
"Since it is difficult for them to communicate in the Indonesian language, they will also find it arduous to participate in development and to enjoy its results," he said.
The campaign to use proper and correct Bahasa Indonesia will be formally launched by President Soeharto on May 20 to coincide with National Awakening Day.
The first goal of the campaign is to stop the increasing use of foreign terms, encouraging the use of local words in their place.
Anton, the former head of the National Language Center, said that the mass media could play a major role in promoting and familiarizing people with good and correct Bahasa Indonesia.
The media, he said, should help to create an atmosphere in which Indonesians are "proud to speak Bahasa Indonesia".
He said he found it difficult to understand why many Indonesian mass media made extensive use of foreign terms of which there were Indonesian equivalents.
For example, Anton said, the Indonesian press should use the phrase "Balai Sidang Hilton Jakarta" rather than "Jakarta Hilton Convention Center" and 'daftar tunggu' instead of "waiting list".
"I think this (use of foreign terms) has got do to with an arrogance in speaking," he said.
Anton hailed the government's recent efforts to have the foreign terms used by companies and developers for housing estates and shopping centers changed to their Indonesian equivalents.
He said that the excuse that Indonesian words were less attractive to prospective consumers was groundless because, he said, "the marketability of a housing estate is determined not by its name but by its location."
"So even if a place is called 'paradise', if it is continually flooded, it will never be marketable. On the other hand, people will fight to get a house in an area called 'Pondok Cabe' if it is located in a strategically," he said. Pondok Cabe, a district in Jakarta's southern outskirts, literally means "chili hut".
Anton criticized Indonesians who prefer to speak to visiting foreigners in a foreign language rather than in Bahasa Indonesia. "They are in Indonesia, so they should learn to speak the language. If we continue to go along with them, when will we be the master in our own country?" he said.
Minister of Information Harmoko, separately, called for wider use of Bahasa, saying that only if the language is used precisely and correctly will it be able to survive and develop.
Harmoko said a language was a universal instrument of communication among its users. He said language determined the culture of a nation. "We must be grateful that, 17 years before our independence was proclaimed, we had already pledged to use Bahasa Indonesia as our national language," he said, as quoted by Antara.
The Youth Pledge, which was made by the nation's founding fathers on Oct. 28, 1928, proclaimed Bahasa Indonesia to be a language of unity. (pwn)