RI warned of losing local languages
RI warned of losing local languages
JAKARTA (JP): Regional autonomy, which will take effect in
January, should provide a base for efforts to foster the use of
the country's surviving 706 local languages, a linguist said on
Friday.
In his address to scholars and students attending his
inauguration as a professor at Atma Jaya University, Bambang
Kaswanti Purwo suggested that the country learn from the world,
which has lost some 4,000 out of 7,000 languages in the past
decade alone.
He said Indonesia was the world's second richest country for
diverse tribal languages after Papua New Guinea, which has 867
local languages.
Some 10 languages vanished every year in the world during the
20th century, most of which were due to a dwindling number of
speakers, he said.
"We'll be doomed if we let that happen in Indonesia. Bahasa
Indonesia has been the dominant language which supports the
government policy to establish uniformity, putting aside the role
of local languages," Bambang said after his oration titled "The
Rise of Diversity: The Linguistic World and Education".
Indonesian children with elementary and secondary education,
who come from various islands and cultural backgrounds, must have
the chance to learn their mother language, said Bambang, who is
the sixth professor to be inaugurated at the university this
year.
"Why? Because the local language, as well as the mother
language, is an effective device to heal emotional and
psychological wounds. It is commonly far more emotionally
relieving to scold people in their mother language," he said.
Local and mother tongues also help people improve their
sensitivity and humanism, he said.
"We might get mad and want to express our anger, but do it
with language instead of violence."
People easily resort to violence because all this time they
were unable to gain their pride, identity and solidarity, which
can effectively be done through local languages, Bambang said.
He revealed data on how quickly a local language would perish.
"Lampung's local dialect has a total of 1.5 million speakers,
but only people over 50 years of age use it. If we don't do
something about that, the language may die in 75 to 100 years
from now," he said.
In the wake of regional autonomy in the education field, the
Ministry of National Education has opened the opportunity for
local authorities to fill the local curriculum, he said.
"Decisionmakers at the regional level must take this
opportunity. They could develop optional classes in local
languages for pupils in elementary and secondary schools and in
this way they can be proud to be Indonesian with its
multicultural heritage.
"Again, we cannot force people to learn something they don't
want to, since cross-ethnic marriage, migration and urbanization
also contribute to each person's ability to speak language(s),"
he said. (edt)