English colonialism alive in Indonesian language
English colonialism alive in Indonesian language
By E. Sadtono
SURABAYA (JP): English colonialism is not dead, it is alive
and kicking -- at least in the Indonesian language. Raffles must
be smiling in his grave knowing of his victory over Jan Pieter
Zoon Koen, a Dutch Governor General, who is beaten on his own
turf in terms of linguistic influence. There are now so many
English words absorbed into the Indonesian language that the
Dutch influence pales in comparison.
Many Indonesians who learned English in school can sometimes
speak English with correct pronunciation, but most cannot. A
number of radio and TV newscasters confirm that. During the APEC
kerfuffle, some TV reporters pronounced APEC as "eppec", but that
is an acronym, not an English word. The word "event" is
pronounced like the word "even"; but the confusion arises with
the letter "g". The word "target" is pronounced "tarjet", whereas
the word "merger" is pronounced "mergger". But don't blame us,
Indonesians, when the word "ghoti" is pronounced "fish" in
English. You wanna clue? "Gh" is pronounced "f" like in "tough",
"o" is pronounced "i" like in "women", and "ti" is pronounced
"sh" as in "nation". Kid's stuff, isn't it?
Speaking about APEC, one of the TV journalists reporting on
the preparation of APEC said that President Soeharto was going to
lead the leaders in "walking garden". Well, I thought, it is not
impossible here as anything can be arranged, even "walking
garden". All the shamans in Bogor would be recruited to make the
garden walk. Unfortunately it was canceled.
From Bogor, I'd like you to visit Batu in Malang. There I'd
like to invite you to stay the night at the Kusuma Agro Wisata
Hotel. The view is terrific and you can eat as many apples as you
like. And when you are tired, according to the hotel brochure,
you can retire to your "specious" room, listening to "pupet"
music. For me, I'd rather stay in a spacious room, listening to
Beethoven through piped music. While you are in Batu, you must
visit a nice resort Selecta, where the Dutch had put up a sign
"No dogs and natives allowed". On your way to Selecta, you'd
better be on the lookout for a dressmaker's signboard saying
"Menerima jahitan dan bordil" (literally meaning "Accepts sewing
and brothel"). Instead of bordil it should be bordir
(embroidery). But who cares? After all, Batu doesn't necessarily
grow only apples, the flesh trade is also booming. Now when you
want to go home, I'd suggest that you book your ticket through
Kambuna "Trevel Cervis" on Jalan Oro-Oro Dowo, Malang. You can't
miss the big sign.
If you still have time before you leave Malang, I think you
should visit a new city south of Malang which even the Jakarta
administration does not know it exists. At the gate to the
"city", there is a big sign saying in English "Welcome to
Sumbermanjing City". I think the head of the kecamatan
(subdistrict) must have passed an English course just recently in
one of the villages there. If you point out to him the
differences between a village, a town and a city and that his
kecamatan is not even a town, he would blurt out, "Oh, yeah? How
come the world is called a global village?"
Still in Malang, one of the former rectors of a teachers'
training institute used to have his memo pad printed "Massage". I
suspect that in the morning this rector sent out messages but in
the afternoon he massaged people as his sideline.
A news item on technology in a Surabaya newspaper I read this
morning was about an off-shoot of the development of Rolls Royce
aircraft engines. I think the reporter got the material from
listening either to CNN or an overseas radio broadcast, and this
is what he wrote, "Berkat teknologi canggih, turbine gas sebagai
deratif mesin pesawat ini..." (Thanks to sophisticated
technology, the gas turbine as a "deratif" of this aircraft
engine...) I racked my brains to find out the meaning of
"deratif", but suddenly it dawned on me that it must be
derivative. Written in Indonesian it would be derivatif. It was
not a typo as it was repeated twice. The reporter cheated readers
by writing a word nobody knows (he might not know it either).
Another journalist quoted a medical doctor in Yogya on the
treatment of victims of the Mount Merapi eruption as saying that
"Saat sekarang, penanganan pasien masih dalam fase survival, live
saving..." (At present, the treatment of the patient is still in
the survival phase, live saving") I don't blame the reporter as
the difference between f and v is confusing to us as we don't
differentiate between the two when we pronounce them, they simply
do not change the meaning in Indonesian, it is not phonemic.
If you happen to have a marital problem, I'd recommend that
you consult a psychologist in Surabaya who was quoted as saying
"Animal driver, penyebab pria/wanita ganti-ganti pasangan seks".
(Animal driver, the cause of men/women changing their sex
partners). It's common in a cheap novel that a woman has an
affair with her driver, but I cannot imagine her having an
orangutan as her driver, though an orangutan's sexual drive may
be stronger than its human counterpart.
Still in Surabaya, a student from the English department of
Teachers' Training Institute wrote an article in a Surabaya paper
entitled "Korupsi: An Euphemism Crime". I think my English
teacher, Mr. Bean, told me that the indefinite article "a" is
used before a consonant, and "an" before a vowel sound. The word
"euphemism" is actually pronounced "yufemism", and so it must be
preceded by "a", not "an". But perhaps Surabayan English permits
such a construction. Actually I was confused myself when I went
to Singapore and saw the name of "Eusoff College". How would eu
be pronounced? It turns out it's said as "yu" and it is a run-of-
the-mill name in Indonesia: Yusuf. I think Raffles must have been
perplexed when he heard of a Malay ruler named Yusuf, but could
not write it down.
The housing estate developers are the ones who notoriously
love using English words in their brochures and ads, even if the
prospective buyers are Indonesians who live in villages. In a
newspaper and promoting the sale of shops, Citra Niaga Jombang,
East Java, uses the following sentence "Daya Tarik: Pasar,
Pujasera...Pedestrian yang lapang...etc.'. (Attractions: Market,
Department Store, Wide Pedestrian...) I was wondering if
Jombangese are broad-chested and attractive people. The realtors
also said that in Surakarta they were audited "off-side and on-
side". Well, I thought that the auditors must also have played
football when they got tired of auditing on-side and off-side.
But an obvious error was made in an ad promoting houses whose
rooms were comfortably fertilized. It says "fertilisasi ruangan
yang nyaman" (the fertilization of rooms which is comfortable). I
think what was meant was ventilasi (ventilation), not fertilisasi
(fertilization); I know full well that rooms are also used for
fertilization sometimes.
Speaking about ads, a big company in Jakarta looking for
senior executives put an ad in English in an English language
newspaper in which one of the items says "Renumeration: Propose
expected renumeration...". Nobody will apply, I think, because
there is no mention of salary or remuneration.
By nature of their profession, travel agents use English terms
a lot and it should come to no surprise when they write "boking"
or "bocking" for booking. They must have drunk a lot of Serimpi
beer, a stout, when they wrote "bocking".
A prominent politician campaigning for his party was recently
quoted as saying that a certain youth organization was not the
"underbouw". As the reporter didn't know Dutch, he/she then
created the new word "underbouw".
The Toyota Kijang car is very popular here among men, the main
reason is that it has a "full pressed body", which means that
it's a body that is full and then pressed. So unconsciously the
libido in men is aroused when they see the sticker. Toyota
advertisers must have hired a Freudian psychologist to make those
three words into a catchphrase. Later on when the sale of the
Kijang begins to decline, I'm sure they will slightly alter the
words into "Fully pressed body", which would bring the ultimate
psychological satisfaction in men.
A salesman came in today to sell an "automatic" gas hose made
in Indonesia. The following is the accompanying leaflet in
English with no single word in Indonesian:
"Used now! Instruction diagram installed. 1. The red mark on
the hose must be install to the regulator. 2. Directly joined
with the stove. Warning! Don't be mistake when joined a safety
auto-hose with your gas regulator. Notice: (I) After installed
already, fry to light on the stove/oven. If success, it means
your stove can light on now. (II) Pat slightly on to the side
portion of the hose in case of unsuccessful lighting. (III) Or by
pailing off the regulator then shake the hose for several times
and installed it again. (IV) If found uneffective after doing,
check the rubber hose or there may be possible of gas leakage.
When the hose is leakage in any parts, this auto-hose will cut-
off the gas automatically".
Well, English has gone international and the above is a good
example of genuine Indonesian English. The main thing is it is
communicative, but leave the correct spelling and grammar to
English teachers.
Mass media
How does the English influence spread so quickly like the AIDS
virus? The mass media are to blame. It goes like this. Reporters
interview a bigwig. He would answer the questions with a
sprinkling of English words here and there. The reporters quote
them. If the reporter's English is good, he or she would put them
down correctly; but if his or her mastery of English is half-
baked, he or she would quote them wrongly. These are then printed
in their respective newspaper, thus the errors. The public simply
swallows them, and they then propagate the errors.
The academic question now is why Indonesians love using
English words when there are equivalents in Bahasa Indonesia?
Several plausible reasons are proposed. The first is that there
are a number of English words which have no equivalents yet in
Indonesian, particularly in the fields of science and technology
which develop very fast. (Now who can cope with the jargon in
computer science?). Secondly, the person who utters the English
word knows the Indonesian equivalent perfectly, but what is in
his/her uppermost mind when he is speaking is the English word.
It's a common phenomenon for bilingual and multilingual people.
Thirdly, the speaker wants to show off though his command of
English is less than perfect, so it's snobbism. Fourthly,
language is dynamic, it is living and the speaker wants to vary
his language to add spice to his speech and he uses English for
that purpose. Fifthly, the English words uses are sometimes
shorter, thus more economical. Human beings, Indonesians that is,
being lazy, want to save their breath by using the more
economical English words. (Indonesians are notorious for using
acronyms which indicates their laziness. For example, we create
beautiful words such as wisatawan mancanegara (foreign tourist)
and wisatawan nusantara (domestic tourist). But what happens now
is the two words are abbreviated to wisman and wisnu
respectively, while on the street people just say turis. Sixth,
in business circles it is intended for promotion, so using
English would make them appear part of the elite, though in fact
it may be effete. Last but not least, Indonesia is going global,
so producers and manufacturers use English for their products, at
all costs -- the main thing is that the message is understood.
But some of them are downright cheeky, they use English just to
mislead Indonesian customers into thinking that the product is
made overseas as Indonesians are still import-minded. To avoid
legalities, the words "Made in..." and the address of the
manufacturer is done away with. What crooks!
With so much English polluting bahasa Indonesia, would the
Indonesian authorities conduct language cleansing, like the
French government? Theoretically it is possible to do, for
example by prohibiting authorities from using English in their
public statements, removing billboards using English, slapping
fines on government officials using English, etc. Jakarta
authorities have tried to impose limits on the use of English in
commercial signboards -- to no avail. The police could set up a
new unit called "Language Police", but they wouldn't have the
manpower to do so, with crime increasing every day, they are
already overstretched. Thus practically it is impossible as the
onslaught is overwhelming. The best thing to do is to leave it
alone, it's part and parcel of the development of modern history
and it is a loan we don't have to pay, thus it enriches the
Indonesian language. In addition, language is dynamic and
virtually no language is pure anyway.
E. Sadtono is professor at the graduate school of the Teachers'
Training Institute, Malang, East Java.