Australians set example

At first glance it might seem that there is nothing exceptional about the 10 Australian high school students now visiting this country. However, their ability to speak Bahasa Indonesia not only fluently, but also flawlessly, makes them special. These young people have studied our language in Perth, Western Australia, with an intensity that few Indonesians would exhibit in the learning of their native tongue.

Reports from Down Under several years ago said that more and more Australians were learning Indonesia's national language. The government of Northern Territory has taught it in all schools since 1990. It is understood that the reason behind the enthusiasm is not only Canberra's ardent desire to boost its relationship with its large northern neighbor, but also its respect of our language, which happens to be similar to those spoken in Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and can be understood in Southern Thailand.

This reality is encouraging because it means one language can serve as a means to bridge cultures and improve understanding. Perhaps it would even not be too optimistic to say that within the near future there will be a lot of experts on Indonesian culture in Australia.

We should not take the current visit by the Australian students as a mere gesture of friendship. We should also view it as an inspiring phenomenon which makes us ask ourselves whether we sincerely respect our own language.

During the last few years we have heard laments -- especially from circles who still strongly believe that Bahasa is one the most important link in the chain of national unity and the most precious asset this nation has -- that disrespect towards the national language has reached alarming proportions.

The root of this evil might the people's tendency to use the language as a means of self identification. And the more disastrous still is the notion that Bahasa Indonesia is inferior to western languages. Many people here have a tendency to use the national language with too little respect towards grammar in order to show their social status. (The more grammatical rules they violate, the higher the positions they are assumed to hold). Thus, many among the new generation of educated people have come to think that the more confusing the mix of English words they use with Indonesian ones, the more elite they will appear.

The real purpose of the strange phenomenon might be the urge to practice English just in case one might go abroad someday. What they seem to forget is that people who do not have the ability to speak their mother tongue properly will never be able to learn a foreign language properly.

The comic side of this tendency is that many Indonesians do not know the original English language meaning of isu (rumor), or whether alternatif (from "alternative") is singular or plural in concept.

Another disgusting trend is the belief that it is proper to mix words from a certain local dialect into Bahasa Indonesia sentences because the local culture from which that dialect originates is considered dominant in this multi-ethnic country.

And the latest tendency to emerge -- using foreign words with Indonesian prefixes or suffixes -- is further corrupting the proper use of Bahasa Indonesia. A few prime examples are: mengcreate (meaning to create), menghandle (to handle) and memanage (to manage).

This constitutes a clear and rude challenge to the call to Indonesians to avoid using foreign-language prefixes and suffixes, such as "tion" or "ation", made years ago in a forum hosted by experts of the National Language Institute. These foreign-language suffixes have since been corrupted into "asi" in words such as nationalisasi or privatisasi. We have even heard state-television and radio newscasters refer to the piping of natural gas as pipanisasi.

So the question remains: Who will supervise the use of the national language? The Language Institute says it is not a linguistic police agency and at least one expert has asserted that the development of the national language should be left in the hands of the users. He points out that, "English took three centuries to become what it is now."

That theory might be true, but we wonder whether a people who lack a true sense of nationalism and seem to be suffering from cultural poverty can develop a good and useful language.