Guess What? Iem G. Ross

Guess What? Iem G. Ross

"I must admit if I hear older Indonesians speaking Dutch, they
speak it beautifully. They speak it correctly and maybe better
than me," said Dutch Counselor for Cultural and Press Affairs Iem
G. Ross.

"Well, they remind me of the generation of my grandfather
because they spoke in such a way too," Ross, who is also director
of the Dutch Cultural Center Erasmus Huis, told The Jakarta Post
recently.

Today, Dutch spoken in the Netherlands has developed and
undergone so much change, while older Indonesians, who studied it
at schools like Hogere Burger School in colonial times, follow
old Dutch.

"That is the reason older Indonesians sometimes say that the
younger generation, who study the language at university, speak
'bad' Dutch," Ross said, adding that in fact they also speak
properly.

"And, the good thing in Indonesia is although my Bahasa
Indonesia is only sedikit because I've been here only one-and-a-
half years, I can speak in Dutch to people like former Minister
of Education and Culture Fuad Hassan and also to Pak Wardiman,
the current Minister of Education and Culture," he explained.
(als)