Bahasa Indonesia and its borrowing of foreign words

Setiono, Lecturer, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta

The existence of Western words in Bahasa Indonesia, particularly English, shows that language borrowing or language mixing has taken place. Many feel that this is a form of linguistic colonialism that could threaten the survival of the national language. This phenomenon has indeed become trendy at all levels from teenagers to politicians. They often either deliberately or spontaneously throw in a sprinkling of English words in their native language.

This language phenomenon -- the mixing of the native language and foreign words -- has been popularly termed Indlish (Indonesian-English), which is analogous with the previously coined terms Singlish (Singaporean-English) and Japlish (Japanese-English).

The influx of English words has increased significantly in various domains such as in politics, economics, technology, commerce, industry, the mass media, and government administration.

The excessive use of English words in the above domains is motivated by both linguistic and sociolinguistic factors. From the linguistic viewpoint the use of Indlish can be viewed as due to at least four fundamental reasons:

First, the unavailable stock of vocabulary in Bahasa Indonesia encourages Indonesian people to import words from the English language. In anticipation of a proliferation of modern technological concepts or products, Indonesians feel that there is an urgent need to borrow words that cannot be found in their native language. As a result of this "lexical gap", they fuse and even code switch English words with Indonesian so that it may sound typically Indlish.

Second, Indonesian people may mix English words in their language if they feel that the existing terms in their own language are either inadequate or incapable of distinguishing things or concepts represented by the terms. That is to say that the meaning of English words is so distinctive that it is difficult to find the precise equivalent in their native language. Thus, the words mutasi, reformasi, organisasi, komisi, asosiasi, etc. are just simply adopted by adjusting their phonology and mixed into Bahasa Indonesia due to the subtle and distinctive meanings these words possess.

Third, the use of English words by presenters, commentators, and journalists is motivated by the nature of their work which requires the immediate understanding and response from their interlocutors. Consequently, since English words are far more efficient than their Indonesian equivalent, their use is badly needed. Or, as linguist Uriel Weinreich once put it, the presence of loanwords in any borrowing language can be accounted for by the fact that using ready made designations is more economical than describing things afresh. Another reason encouraging Indonesian society to adopt English is concerned with "euphemistic" purposes.

Thus, there is a tendency among Indonesians to substitute existing Bahasa Indonesia words with English since the latter have more refined connotations than the former. Accordingly, many adopted English words such as asisten (assistant), komisi (commission), and "ex-" as in ex-presiden (ex-president) are frequently employed instead of the respective Indonesian words pembantu, upah, and bekas president, which are considered coarse in the community.

Finally, due to its receptivity toward foreign languages, the English words can be easily mixed or transformed into a Bahasa Indonesia affixation. For instance, the following Indlish utterances can often be heard: Mentransfer dana (to transfer fund), dimodifikasi (being modified), diasosisikan dengan (being associated with), and many others.

Apart from linguistic factors, sociolinguistic aspects also play a significant role in encouraging Indonesians to produce Indlish in their utterances. The belief that English is a prestigious and internationally recognized language cannot be separated from the social values of the language community concerned. Therefore, if the Indonesians have a positive attitude toward English words, they are more likely either to borrow or code switch them into their language in order to display their social status.

It is also interesting to note that sometimes both language borrowing and code switching are expressed together, as shown in the following statement: Terjadinya keributan dewasa ini mengindikasikan lemahnya law enforcement (the riots that happened recently indicate poor law enforcement).

The above points demonstrate that the attitudes of speakers of a given language community influence the extent to which language mixture occurs. This is indeed in line with the word-coining policy that stipulates that "in case there is no appropriate terms for the borrowed words in Bahasa Indonesia or its language family, the terms can be taken from a foreign language".

Cultural contact may also -- to a large extent -- have an impact on language mixture or even language change. This cultural influence may accordingly trigger language borrowing from one country to another. Usually, a less developed country would borrow extensively from a more dominant or advanced country, as Indonesian borrows from English and the Dutch.

With regard to this cultural penetration, it is amazing to note that a relatively advanced country such as Japan has also imported a tremendous number of English loanwords in the domains mentioned above. In fact, Japanese people admit that the lexical limitation in certain domains motivates them to adopt words from English. The words computer and television, for instance, have been adopted in the Japanese words konpyuta and terebi, respectively.

Both linguistic and sociolinguistic factors discussed above provide a clear justification that the term Indlish and also Japlish, if they are truly understood as language borrowing, and thus language mixture, should be regarded as an inevitable language phenomenon. Loyalty to the mother tongue per se is just insufficient, or extremely speaking, impossible.

The extent to which one language is favored or preferred will depend very much on the community' attitude or perception of the language used. In other words, the creative use of a language is not the sole prerogative of the language specialists or central authority. The fact that the National Center for Language Development (Pusat Pembinaan Bahasa) fails in its mission to promote the use of the national language among the Indonesian people supports the above statement.