Bahasa Indonesia: The pride of Indonesians

Veeramalla Anjaiah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

For Bobby Kuntoro, 23, a student of social sciences at Sebelas Maret University in Solo, Central Java, it has always been a dilemma about what language to use in and outside of his house.

"I have been using equally Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Jawa since my childhood. I use Bahasa Indonesia when outdoors and Bahasa Jawa when indoors. I must be careful while talking to my mother, who is a Javanese and is not fluent in Bahasa Indonesia," Bobby said.

Bobby is one of millions of Indonesians who use Bahasa Indonesia and regional languages in their everyday lives. Both the languages, national and regional, have so far maintained their identity but there is a potential danger that the dominance of Bahasa Indonesia among the younger generation could harm regional languages in coming decades.

Since its birth as a nation, one of the most remarkable achievements of Indonesia has been the development of Bahasa Indonesia as its national as well as official language.

From Sabang to Merauke, Bahasa, or Indonesian -- as it is popularly known -- is widely spoken as a first or second language by almost all 220 million Indonesians. Beyond Indonesia's borders, Bahasa is now also spoken by a majority of people in the youngest nation, East Timor.

Indonesia is perhaps the only country in the world that solved its language issue long before it even became independent. It was not an easy task to select a national language from more than 400 languages and dialects.

Seventy-six years ago, on Oct. 28, brushing aside their regional, cultural, linguistic and ethnic divisions, 750 young men and women from all corners of the archipelago gathered during the Second Youth Congress in Jakarta and took the important Youth Pledge.

The youth clearly stated in their pledge that there would be "one homeland (Indonesia), one nation and one language (Bahasa Indonesia)."

Many people -- both Indonesians as well as foreigners -- may not be aware that the term "Indonesia" did not exist before 1850. It was first used by a British anthropologist, James Richardson, to refer to the archipelago located between the two continents of Asia and Australia.

As far as Bahasa Indonesia is concerned, in 1928 Indonesian people chose Bahasa Melayu, a language spoken in Riau, Sumatra, as their national language under the new name Bahasa Indonesia.

One may wonder why Indonesians selected Bahasa Melayu, a language spoken by only 10 percent of the population at that time instead of Bahasa Jawa, which was spoken by about 40 percent of the population.

"It was due to the tolerance of the Javanese people, who wholeheartedly supported Bahasa Indonesia as the national language for the sake of national unity.

This aspect was the key to Indonesia's success in solving the language problem," said Dr. B.D. Arora, an Indian expert on Indonesian affairs.

During the colonial period, the Dutch banned the usage of words like "independence" and "freedom" in public meetings. Bahasa Indonesia was the symbol of persatuan (national unity). Indonesian nationalists cleverly used the word persatuan as a synonym for the word "independence".

But there was another dimension to the adoption of Bahasa Melayu, which was the lingua franca of the archipelago.

"It (Bahasa Melayu) had been used as a language of trade since ancient times and came to be known primarily as Melayu Pasar (Malay bazaar) language," Rustanto Sudin, the language editor of Matra magazine said.

He said that apart from Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu is widely spoken by the people of southern Thailand, Mindanao in the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.

While explaining the reason for the selection of Bahasa Melayu, the late Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, a literary and cultural figure, said: "It was the simplicity and structure of Bahasa Melayu that made it easy to learn. Moreover, there is no hierarchy in Bahasa Melayu, unlike in Bahasa Jawa, which has different levels such as Krama Inggil, Krama and Ngoko, making it difficult to learn."

Bahasa Indonesia is unique in that it is a more democratic and flexible language than any other language in Southeast Asia. It had interacted with many languages, including Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, Tamil, Telugu, Dutch, Portuguese and English.

Since its birth, Bahasa Indonesia gave momentum to the embryonic concept of Indonesian nationalism and united an enormous country that is extremely diverse, not only geographically and ethnically, but also religiously and culturally.

"Bahasa Indonesia is the pride of the nation," Prof. Harimurti Kridalaksana, a leading language expert from the University of Indonesia, proclaimed in one of his books.