Linguists and politics

I am responding to your Oct. 28, article entitled "Language experts decry political doublespeak."

While I'm in favor of separating linguistics from politics, I think that people described as linguists should use accurate terms when describing the languages they study.

Indonesia has hundreds of languages. For the purpose of national unity and education, the government chose one, Malay, to be the official language. For political purposes, Malay was renamed Bahasa Indonesia. Just as English is spoken in Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia.

Linguists should recognize the value of scientific accuracy, and politicians should recognize the value of ASEAN unity. Both should recognize that the official language of Indonesia is a standardized dialect of Malay, spoken in parts of Indonesia for a thousand years or more.

CHRISTY LANZL

Jakarta