Indonesia hosts Malay seminar, congress

Indonesia hosts Malay seminar, congress

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Malay linguists and experts from Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei
Darussalam will gather in Makassar, South Sulawesi next week to
discuss ways to replace foreign language terms with Malay.

Head of Indonesia Language Center Dendy Sugondo told The
Jakarta Post on Wednesday that Makassar was chosen to host the
annual Malay language seminar and literature congress. The aims
of the congress would be promoting Malay terms and developing
Malay so that it becomes one of the major languages in the world.

"We want to develop Malay so that it supports the national
identity of the three countries especially in this globalization
era. We also would like to promote the use of local terms to
replace many English or other language terms," Dendy told the
Post.

Malay is widely spoken as a first language in Indonesia,
Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam.

Dendy said that currently Indonesia has 250,000 local terms to
replace many foreign terms, but there had been insufficient
promotion among the public to use such terms.

"We will launch the new terms dictionary on the first day of
the seminar. In the future we will also provide the new terms on
the internet to make it easy for the public to access them,"
Dendy said.

The seminar will be opened by the Minister of National
Education Abdul Malik Fadjar.

One of the speakers will be cultural observer Emha Ainun
Najib.

Singaporean delegates will attend as observers, which will
also discuss cultures that influence the use of language.

Prior to the seminar, there will be a two-day congress on
Malay language that will start on Friday.

That will be followed by a two-day congress on Malay
literature.

Malaysia hosted the 2001 edition of the annual seminar. Next
year's activities will be hosted by Brunei Darussalam.