'Bahasa' Using: A Language of its own

'Bahasa' Using: A Language of its own

BANYUWANGI (JP): Despite early opposition from several
linguists and proponents of the Javanese language, Banyuwangi's
local language, with the name Using, finally won the battle, with
an agreement to slowly remove Javanese from classrooms in the
regency.

"It is my 20-year obsession to see the Using language taught
in classrooms in Banyuwangi," Hasan Ali, linguist and writer of
"Guidelines to the Using Language Spelling System", published in
1995.

A pilot project for teaching the Using language in the
Banyuwangi regency was introduced in the 1997/1998 academic year
at nine elementary schools in the Glagah, Kabat and Rogojampi
districts. The next stage will see teaching of the language in 13
out of the total 21 districts. The ultimate goal is to have the
language taught in all elementary and secondary schools
throughout the regency in the beginning of the next century.

According to Ali, the idea of bringing the language into
classrooms was inspired by a paper which claimed that the number
of speakers of Javanese, much higher than those speaking Using,
was declining.

A census carried out in 1990 showed there were 1.45 million
people in Banyuwangi regency, and 53 percent of them spoke the
Using language.

"If we don't do anything, the same fate will happen to Using,"
said Ali, who chaired the Blambangan Art Council for more than 20
years. To work toward his dream, he put aside his other project:
writing a Using-Indonesian dictionary -- by 1982 Ali had
completed entries for 16,000 Using words.

With the help of a friend at Japan's Kyoto University, last
year he received financial assistance from the Toyota Foundation
to complete the dictionary.

Before the introduction of the new policy, the Using language
was always considered to be a dialect of Javanese.

However, people of Banyuwangi believe their language shares
the same roots with Javanese, which comes from Old Javanese, but
that the two are now actually separate languages in many
respects, taking into consideration phonology, morphology, syntax
and even different vocabularies.

Several Old Javanese words which do not exist in modern
Javanese are still spoken in the Using language.

The most significant difference with Using is that, unlike in
Javanese, there is no variation in terms employed when addressing
people of different social levels.

Another encouragement for the use of the local language in
classrooms came when the education ministry instructed Banyuwangi
schools to teach a popular dance, Gandrung, as an extracurricular
activity.

"You can not learn Gandrung without learning the language.
Because all songs which accompany the dance are in the Using
language," Ali said.

In terms of literature, the language has been widely used in
both written and oral works.

"The Using oral art in the 19th century was far ahead of
Chairil Anwar," Ali said, referring to a leading poet of the 1945
generation who set a new stream in Indonesian literature by
introducing a freer form of poetry -- without rhyming lines or
regular quatrains (verses of four lines).

Strongly influenced by Malay and Riau literary works,
Indonesian poetry before the 1945 generation had a regular number
of verses and lines.

"In (the Gandrung song) Podho nonton for example, there are no
end-rhymes, or quatrains," Ali said, adding that this freer form
of poetry was widely used in several performance styles, such as
Gandrung and Seblang.

The Ensiklopedia Indonesia also mentions a literature stream
originating from Banyuwangi.

According to the Encyclopedia: "Until the 18th century, there
were followers of Hinduism and there was even a stream of
literature called the Banyuwangi Stream. For example, Sri Tanjung
and Sang Satyawan manuscripts were from that stream. During the
Majapahit era, the two stories were very popular because they
were carved into the verandah of Penataran temple in Blitar."

Ali said it that two works alone could not be called a
separate literary stream. Therefore, he reasoned, there must be
more than those two. He said other works may have been destroyed
in wars. (Antariksawan Jusuf)