Language reflects national character

Language reflects national character

By Prapti Widinugraheni

JAKARTA (JP): 'Bahasa menunjukkan bangsa' is a popular Indonesian saying which more or less means "language reflects people". Ironically, however, it is ourselves who have to be repeatedly reminded of the importance of bahasa Indonesia in shaping the nation's identity.

Language, which to some people may not seem as important as general elections or as serious as bad debts, has lately become an issue that even President Soeharto, and later Education and Culture Minister Wardiman Djojonegoro, have addressed.

"Use bahasa Indonesia correctly and be proud of it," said Wardiman last February when he announced the theme of the official campaign to promote the proper usage of the national language.

The campaign was officially launched on National Awakening Day last Saturday.

So far, the first ones to feel the sting of the campaign have been real estate developers, apartment and shopping mall builders, who have been proudly using foreign names and terms for their projects, saying that it is "more eye-catching" to prospective customers.

This was quickly dismissed by language expert Anton Moeliono who quipped that people choose a house not by its name but by its location.

Next, the media was lashed at, with Moeliono saying that while on the one hand the press could become an effective means to introduce good and correct bahasa to its 190 million users, it could, on the other, cause widespread, massive mistakes every time it used the language incorrectly.

Why is the issue of bahasa Indonesia so important and why does it still have to be promoted even though it has been proclaimed the national language for almost 70 years?

Bahasa Indonesia was adopted from bahasa Melayu, which in ancient times was commonly used in Riau, Johor and areas around the Malay Peninsula.

It started out as a lingua franca and a language of trade used across the Indonesian archipelago and neighboring regions in Southeast Asia.

In was later enriched by local dialects from across the archipelago, such as those spoken in Java, Sunda, Madura, Ambon, Manado, Minang and Aceh.

It also received significant influence from foreign words and phrases which arrived on our shores with the colonialists.

In the late 1920s, bahasa Melayu was used by only 4.9 percent of the then 30 million population.

According to 1990 statistics, 24 million or 15 percent of the 180 million population spoke bahasa as a daily language, 107 million or 68 percent could speak the language but did not use it in daily communication and 27 million or 17 percent could not understand bahasa Indonesia at all.

The Central Bureau of Statistics predicts that by the year 2010, every Indonesian aged five years and older from an estimated total population of 215 million would master bahasa, albeit at various levels of skill.

To this day, the development of bahasa Indonesia has not yet come to a halt.

It has continued to receive, adopt and absorb new vocabularies on one hand while changing, standardizing and adjusting old ones on the other.

In the last 50 years, the Indonesian dictionary has added over 50,000 new words and terms to its contents.

Several months ago, for example, the Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa Indonesia (Center for Indonesian Language Development) published a guideline for the correct usage of bahasa Indonesia. Included in the guideline was a long list of foreign terms and their new, standardized Indonesian translations.

The words condominium, concession, management and deregulation, for instance, are directly absorbed into bahasa Indonesia and become kondominium, konsesi, manajemen and deregulasi.

However, supermarket, high-rise building, data processor and awning become pasar swalayan, bangunan jangkung, pengolah data and bidai respectively.

The list also had the "correct" translation of foreign-named housing estates and shopping malls: Bogor Boulevard should be Adimarga Bogor or Bulevar Bogor, Cafe Batavia should be Kafe Betawi, Ratu Plaza should be Plaza Ratu and City Garden should be Taman Asripura or Taman Kota Permai.

Others included in the list were: mus (mousse), baju senggang (negligee), benang pembersih gigi (dental floss), waralaba or francis (franchise), kentang jari goreng (french fries), mi spinasi (spinach noodles) and penempahan (booking).

One of the disadvantages of being such a young and relatively simple language, is perhaps its "flexibility".

"Bahasa Indonesia goes by very loose guidelines," Anton once said. "Why can't we be more grammatically strict when we use bahasa Indonesia, like when people speak Arab, English or German, for instance," he said.

Anton considers bahasa Indonesia guidelines urgently needs to be tightened, its rules reinforced and, last but not least, popularized countrywide.

But Anton may have more to do than simply call on the public to use "Bahasa Indonesia yang baik dan benar" (good and correct bahasa Indonesia).

Although bahasa Indonesia is an egalitarian language which enables everyone to use it regardless of their social background, the dominant Indonesian culture of following -- and bowing -- to a senior, a respected public figure or an elder fellow-speaker in an excessive and sometimes irrational manner, does not always allow the language to remain egalitarian.

While written speeches by the country's top-most people in bahasa Indonesia are practically flawless, it is no secret that when it comes to speaking the language, except for a few exceptions, these people generally articulate very poorly in Indonesian.

Not only are their sentences not well-structured and therefore make no sense, but their pronunciation -- of Indonesian and adapted foreign terms -- is also often incorrect.

Aside from that, another dominant culture in the country is saying "yes" when you actually mean "no" and vice-versa -- something that many long-time expatriates may be quite familiar with.

To do this, a speaker must go beating around the bush before he arrives at what he really wants to say.

The only way to do that, in Indonesian, is by making long, winding sentences where you have to slip in here and there words of respect, words of apology (if necessary) and, of course, your true intention, which should be neatly wrapped somewhere among the "flowery" phrases.

This causes unnecessary words and phrases which have no contribution to clarifying an idea. Instead, it results in very bad bahasa Indonesia.

If the top figures who are supposed to be role models for the country's 190 million bahasa users still fail to demonstrate their ability to conceive a good flow of ideas -- for a good sentence is a spoken or written form of an idea -- imagine where Moeliono must start his language campaign.

And imagine what the proud founding fathers would think if they saw their grandchildren's generation use a language they valued so highly in such a poor manner.