Regard for our language

Regard for our language

The adoption of and adherence to one national language is one
of the founding principles of the Republic of Indonesia. Since
well before the declaration of independence, dedicated patriots
have worked tirelessly to spread and improve the use of Bahasa
Indonesia, which is one of the corner stones of the unity of the
Indonesian people. It seems a tragic irony, therefore, that the
Indonesian Real Estate Association refused to respect Indonesia's
national language until it had been asked to do so by no less
than 27 governors and three cabinet ministers. The association's
members have been asked to change the foreign, mainly English,
names of their real estate developments, notably their housing
complexes, to Indonesian ones. The same request was made earlier
by Jakarta's Governor, Surjadi Soedirdja, but apparently his call
fell on deaf ears.

Disrespect for the national language is not limited to
property developers. Even government officials have shown a lack
of care. But against this troubling backdrop, a prominent
property tycoon has now announced his readiness to change the
English names of his real estate holdings to Indonesian ones. The
businessman, Ciputra, who owns Indonesia's largest real estate
company, has stepped forward to set a good example. Owners of
other residential estates and commercial centers seem to believe
that the Indonesian language is less prestigious and less
attractive to customers than foreign languages. They have named
their buildings accordingly.

While such scorn for the national language can also be found
elsewhere, real estate developments deserve special attention
because of the powerful demonstration effect which the foreign
naming of such projects has. In sports the national language has
suffered the same fate, with English-language sports terms being
considered, for some reason, to be more appropriate than their
Indonesian-language equivalents.

In the realm of government we often hear officials using alien
terms such as operasionalisasi" or pipanisasi. This improper and
regrettable conversion of English words with the suffixes "-tion"
and "-ation" is no less than a corruption of the Indonesian
language. Because our people are still so used to traditional
thinking, ordinary citizens tend to imitate every example given
by officials or those whom they believe to be more educated. And
so we often come across distorted English expressions, such as
Zet Pump, Cervice Station or Intirior Decoration, in place of
"jet pump", "service station" and "interior decoration".

The confusion might not have reached its current disturbing
level if officials were able to refrain from making lengthy,
grammatically incorrect pronouncements in television broadcasts.
Ironically, many educated members of our society who are used to
making long statements seem to hate long Indonesian words and
phrases. They "solve" the problem by haphazardly transforming the
offending expressions into acronyms, many of which are then
displayed in public places. In the 1990s, chaotic language use
seems to be a mark social status in Indonesia: the more
ungrammatical, twisted and incorrect a person's speech is, the
more sophisticated they are taken to be.

The reigning linguistic anarchy may be partly rooted in our
people's ambition to master a foreign language, especially
English. Since few Indonesians can do it well, foreign-language
expressions are mixed with Bahasa Indonesia in a very disorderly
manner.

Few people seem to understand that the point of mastering a
language is not to gain a status symbol, but to acquire a means
of communication and, in Indonesia's case, unification.