Loanwords: Imperialism or modernization?

Loanwords: Imperialism or modernization?

By Setiono

JAKARTA (JP): In commemorating this year's Language and
Literature month which falls in October, Minister of Education
and Culture Juwono Sudarsono stated that there was an excessive
use of foreign language by attendants of the ongoing general
session of the People's Consultative Assembly.

He then strongly urged the National Center for Language
Development (Pusat Pembinaan Bahasa Indonesia) to immediately
find the Indonesian equivalent for the foreign words used.

During the New Order era, the invasion of the English language
was perceived by many as a new form of colonialism. They argued
that borrowing from Western languages might cause linguistic
segregation between the elite and the common people.

Furthermore, they contended that new lexical terms of bahasa
Indonesia should be derived from Sanskrit and Arabic, as the
Malay language has done throughout its long history of borrowing.
Such borrowing would maintain Indonesian traditions and culture,
and promote feelings of nationalism among Indonesian people.

Such a reflection of the spirit of nationalism has urged
central authorities to prohibit the use of all English words
employed mainly on billboards, in shopping center names,
buildings, and companies.

Such attitudes toward Western languages, especially English,
encouraged Indonesian language specialists to use Sanskrit, which
is used primarily in Indonesian national and political life.

It is important to note that Indonesia's political and
military leaders deem the era of Buddhist and Hindu influence as
not only a representation of Indonesian culture but also the mark
of the zenith of Indonesian political power in Southeast Asia.
Therefore, words stemming from Sanskrit command considerable
respect as legacies of the powerful kingdoms and empires of
Indonesia's past.

In addition, many newly-coined terms from Sanskrit have been
increasingly used, particularly in the political domain as the
symbol of the nation state, and are intended to rubber-stamp the
legitimacy of the leaders' power.

The use of Sanskrit terms dealing with the Indonesian
political sphere include Saptamarga (the seven pledges of the
Indonesian army), Pancasila (the five principles of Indonesia's
ideology), dwiwarna (the two colors of the Indonesian flag), Bina
Graha (the office housing the meetings of the president and his
ministers) and Graha Purna Yuddha (the building of the veterans),
to mention a few.

The influx of foreign languages, particularly English
loanwords or borrowing, has so far increased significantly and
uncontrollably in various domains such as in politics, economics,
commerce, the mass media, government administrations and higher
education.

The crucial question here is, does such flourishing borrowing
indicate that we have been linguistically colonized? Is it always
possible to substitute all the established foreign words into
bahasa Indonesia? If it is possible, is it preferable? And does
the use of English by Indonesians portray a lack of nationalism?

Linguistically, we should not be embarrassed to admit that
bahasa Indonesia is undergoing a "lexical crisis", and it sounds
that the importation of words from foreign languages is badly
needed so as to suffice the semantic field of bahasa Indonesia.

Joan Rubin, in 1977, argued that there are three motivating
factors as to why language borrowing occurs. There are linguistic
motivations, which include changes in a language for the purpose
of improving communicative efficiency, semi linguistic
motivations, which include changes in a language for improving
communication for social, political, or economic purposes and
extra linguistic motivations, which include furthering social
political causes by focusing on language problems.

In addition, the frequent occurrence of English borrowings in
bahasa Indonesia is inevitable as they cannot be appropriately
substituted by ordinary words in bahasa Indonesia. Therefore,
such political terms as provokasi (provocation), politisi
(politician), delegasi (delegation), and revolusi (revolution)
are necessarily borrowed because no immediate equivalence in
bahasa Indonesia can be found to replace them.

Another factor motivating Indonesian society to adopt English
is concerned with "euphemistic" purposes. There is a tendency
among Indonesians to substitute existing bahasa Indonesia words
with English since the latter has finer connotations than the
former. Accordingly, many adopted English words such as asisten
(assistant), komisi (commission), and "ex-" as in ex-presiden
(ex-president) are frequently employed instead of the respective
Indonesian words pembantu, upah, and bekas, which are considered
coarse in the community.

Language is a social phenomenon and therefore the process of
language borrowing is not solely determined by linguistic
conditions alone, but is also influenced by the attitude of
speakers of a given language community. If speakers of the
recipient language show a positive attitude towards the donor
language and its community, borrowing is more likely to occur.

It is thus ironic to forcibly substitute the established
English words into Bahasa Indonesia because the Indonesian
community has a positive attitude toward English. This attitude
is obviously reflected in the third principle of word-coining
policy, which stipulates that in case of no appropriate terms for
the borrowed words in bahasa Indonesia or its language family, an
indigenous or local language, the terms can be taken from a
foreign language.

From a sociolinguistic perspective, many politicians and
educated people are motivated to use English words to accentuate
their roles as modern political leaders and to mark the group in
their speech, particularly when talking with other educated
interlocutors. In other words, they prefer to use English as a
means to display their social status as a member of the modern
educated elite.

The prevalent use of English can interestingly be seen in the
Indonesian mass media. Such a phenomenon is driven by the nature
of the work of journalists and those who present news, commentary
and advertisements to the public, which requires the immediate
understandings and responses from their interlocutors or readers.

Thus, spontaneous utterances containing clusters of words
representing thoughts, ideas, and references from various sources
and spheres of life are common in journalistic language.

Accordingly, they do not always have the leisure to express
their thoughts in well-chosen and accurate words in bahasa
Indonesia. The tendency here is to borrow or adopt words or terms
that do not exist in a particular language and even to replace
existing words that are no longer felt to be accurate.

In conclusion, the process of foreign language borrowing in
Bahasa Indonesia, either spoken or written, should be viewed as
an interesting and natural language phenomenon and as a means to
develop and eventually to enrich the lexicon of bahasa Indonesia.
On the other hand, cultivating chauvinistic and sentimental
attitudes against foreign languages is inconceivable as we enter
the next millennium, which is characterized by advanced science
and technology.

The writer is a lecturer at the English Department of the
Faculty of Education, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta.