`Bahasa Indonesia', 66 years after

By J.S. Badudu

BANDUNG (JP): Sixty-six years have passed since the initial making of the Youth Pledge, one of the most historic moments in our nation's experience and one engraved in gold in the annals of our history. It was a moment that was to lay the strongest foundation for the success of our struggle to oust the Dutch colonial power from our land.

For centuries we lived under the shackles of a nation whose country occupies an area smaller than that of the province of West Java and whose population numbers a mere 10 percent of that of our own. How could that happen? The answer is that there was no concrete action to counter their policy of divide-and-rule. We were fragmented, each of us standing alone, disunited. This is what made us vulnerable to their rule.

Any rebellion was easily crushed, and by our own people, Indonesians from other parts of the country, who were used by the colonizers to bolster their power.

The Youth Pledge changed all that. The three vows contained in the Pledge laid a solid foundation for our struggle: unity. This unity was what we needed most of all. There were many of us, we had the strength, but we were never one. Now we aspired to have a common homeland, to be a single nation -- Indonesia. And in order that the hundreds of ethnic groups, each with its own traditions and its own language, could be joined into one huge nation, we strove to unite them with the best possible means available: language.

It was for that reason that the third oath in the Pledge vowed that we would "uphold the language of unity, Bahasa Indonesia". It was a momentous contribution which our young people presented us in that Youth Pledge of 1928.

Of the three oaths, the pledge to use one Indonesian language has perhaps made the most tangible contribution to Indonesia's unity at present, to our freedom and to the establishment of our identity as a nation. The Bahasa Indonesia has demolished our sense of being divided into ethnic entities because it makes us feel that we belong to one single nation. We do not consider it an alien language even though we must admit that for most of us the Bahasa Indonesia is a second language.

The Bahasa Indonesia, which we have made our language of unity and embraced in our Constitution as our official language, has its origins in the Malay language. This Malay language is not a rich language. It is above all a means of communication among people although it is also used in literature.

But mankind's life evolves with time. Science and technology continue to advance and language as a simple means of communication cannot meet the needs of either. The Indonesian language, therefore, has had to be enriched with a host of terms and phrases borrowed from either any of the regional languages, or from foreign ones. Our dealings with other peoples have their impact on the use of the Indonesian language.

Although at around the middle of the last century Governor General Rochussen declared the Malay language a language of instruction in schools, it was only in 1918 that the Queen of the Netherlands proclaimed it an official language that could be used in the Volksraad, the legislature of what was then the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia).

At present the Bahasa Indonesia is the official language of Indonesia and is continually being enriched. Its growth and development has not reached its peak. It is difficult to say how many more years it will take before the Indonesian language becomes stable and reaches a peak level of development that will put it on a par with the major modern languages of the world, such as English, German, Arabic or Japanese.

Every so often new words from Indonesia's local languages, or from dialects of the Bahasa Indonesia enter its vocabulary. Also, new Indonesian equivalents of foreign words continue to be coined to enrich our language. Because so many influences from the outside are brought into the language by users of the Bahasa Indonesia, changes are bound to be appear in the Indonesian language in the form of word usage, phrases or even word and sentence structure.

All this appears to be happening at so rapid a pace that people who do not constantly follow the developments will be left behind. It must be admitted that the Bahasa Indonesia has not reached the level of being a stable language. This is the reason why in the writing of scientific papers people often find it difficult to find the precise word or phrase to express complicated scientific ideas.

The important thing for us with regard to the development of the Bahasa Indonesia is the attention that we pay to the language, or the will that we have to master it so that we use it correctly. We must have the awareness that it is we who possess the language and that, therefore, we must cherish this national possession. This feeling should arouse in us not only a sense of pride in possessing a national language, but also the intention to use it correctly.

The improper use of the language that we can often see in writing is proof of our indifference towards this national language of ours. A positive attitude towards the Bahasa Indonesia must be promoted and the best place to do this is in schools. By instilling in our children a love for the language from the earliest moments of their lives, we can make sure that the coming generation of Indonesians will be good users of the language, people who will be able to preserve the dignity of the nation through their language.

Sixty-six years have now passed since we vowed to make the Bahasa Indonesia our common language. Now we have made it our national language. Let it not be that a hundred more years must pass before it can attain the level of stability and excellence that will make it truly fit to be a language of science and technology, as well as a language of such beauty that it will affect the feelings of readers of Indonesian works of literature.

It is not impossible that our greater role in world politics in the future will also raise the Indonesian language to the stature of a world language. May this hope some day turn into reality and may the Indonesian language continue to thrive.

The writer is a professor of literature at Padjadjaran University, Bandung.