'Indonesian language good for scientific purposes'

'Indonesian language good for scientific purposes'

JAKARTA (JP): As the country prepares to mark the 67th
anniversary of Bahasa Indonesia as the national language, poets
and experts yesterday exalted it as a supple medium that is both
esthetically and scientifically malleable.

Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro
underlined the role Bahasa Indonesia plays as a unifier of the
nation and its ability to evolve with the changing times.

Wardiman dismissed the suggestions that the national language
is incapable of illustrating modern scientific and technical
jargons, pointing to the many research papers that have been well
written in Indonesian.

"There are many dissertations and thesis prepared which tract
various issues of science and technology," he said during a
meeting on the 1995 Language and Literature Month at the Language
Development Center.

Bahasa Indonesia was formally declared the national language
when a group of youths from Java, Sumatra and the eastern
islands, which were all then under Dutch rule, gathered in
Jakarta on Oct. 28, 1928, to affirm their alliance to one nation,
one state and one language. That declaration is now known and
commemorated as Sumpah Pemuda, or Youth Pledge day.

Wardiman's comment came in light of the increasing popularity
of foreign languages, particularly English, among Indonesia's
intellectual elite.

The government has waged a vigorous campaign this year to
encourage people to use Indonesian correctly. Part of the
campaign involved replacing foreign words on billboards and in
names of real estates and companies with Indonesian terms.

Wardiman stressed that Indonesians should not scoff at
Indonesian but instead should be proud to possess a language
which is able, amid the many ethnic languages already in
existence, to unite the country and is applicable to modern
science.

"There is no reason for people to think that Bahasa Indonesia
cannot be used to express ideas on science and technology," he
said.

He urged Indonesians to consciously use proper Indonesian in
their daily lives. The appropriate use of the language would help
foster its development, he added.

The minister noted that apart from scientific pieces, the
language has proven through the vast volumes of literary work
that it also contains a high degree of aesthetic values.

His point was further hammered at by poet W.S. Rendra, who
during the discussion yesterday said that he had been privileged
to use Bahasa Indonesia as a medium to express his work.

"As a poet I have been lucky to use Bahasa Indonesia. It is
very lithesome and thus appropriate for poetry," he remarked.

The power of Bahasa Indonesia was its ability to matriculate
the various ethnic influences from around the country, he said.

The ability to accommodate the high degree of aesthetic values
is demonstrated by the many translations of foreign literary
pieces into Indonesian without losing the original essence.

"This has been proven by Jakob Sumardjo who successfully
translated Shakespeare's works," Rendra said. "Bahasa Indonesia
is certainly capable of bringing out the beauty in literary
works."

During yesterday's meeting, special appreciation was given to
three current works for their contribution to Indonesian
literature.

Two of them are collections of short stories: Saksi Mata
(Eyewitness) by Seno G. Ajidarma and Tuyul (Ghost) by F. Rahardi.
The third is a novel by Ahmad Tohari called Bekisar Merah (Red
Rooster).(mds)