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)