'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)