Sundanese speakers choose 'bahasa' over native tongue

Sundanese speakers choose 'bahasa' over native tongue

By Matdon

BANDUNG (JP): The Sundanese language is becoming endangered as
more Sundanese are no longer proud to speak their native tongue.

Sundanese, second only to Javanese in terms of the number of
speakers, is losing popularity to the official language, Bahasa
Indonesia, which is spoken more by younger Sundanese as the main
language in everyday communication.

The alarm was sounded by prominent Sundanese figures who are
worried that the local dialect could eventually become extinct.

On one occasion, Aboeng Kusman, a Sundanese elder and former
governor of West Java, said, "The Sundanese have been carried
away by deungeun (foreign) culture, and Sundanese people feel shy
to speak it. Today, many parents feel too shy to teach Sundanese
to their children. They speak Sundanese in their daily lives only
on a few occasions as most of the time they speak Indonesian in a
Sundanese accent. This is both ridiculous and embarrassing."

He said the influence of information dissemination and the
media, all exposing foreign culture, "forced" the indigenous
Sundanese to speak Indonesian with a Sundanese accent.

It could well be that the worry for this prominent figure of
Paguyuban Pasundan (the Sundanese association) has been a long
drawn-out phenomenon as, apart from leaving behind the Sundanese
language, young people in West Java have also begun to abandon
the Sundanese standard of politeness.

Yus Rusyana, professor of Sundanese at the Indonesian
Education University (UPI) Bandung, Rd. Hidayat Suryalaga,
chairman of the Atikan Sunda Foundation, Iman Sudirman, rector of
Pasundan University, Rd. Ading Afandi and other prominent
Sundanese figures have all expressed worry over the developments
concerning the survival of Sundanese.

Prominent Sundanese figures have tried hard to rekindle
passion for the Sundanese language. In 1999, for example, a
seminar on "The Future of Sundanese and its Challenges" was held
in Lembang.

Last June, a Sundanese workshop was held in Garut in
conjunction with the anniversary of Paguyuban Pasundan. The most
recent was a discussion on the Sundanese identity, held by the
Art Window Foundation in September and also participated in by
ethnic Chinese born in Bandung with a great interest in
Sundanese.

All these efforts have been but a momentary "injection" of
enthusiasm, which has only fleetingly removed the concern, only
to remain as mere attempts as the Sundanese language does not
budge from its lower rank.

The Bandung Arts Center once introduced a number of Sundanese
art attractions to motivate elementary school pupils to speak
Sundanese. These pupils were required to see these attractions
twice a month. Unfortunately, the program lasted only two months
and since then it has not been heard of again.

Look to Javanese

Hidayat Suryalaga has felt envious of Javanese and Batak
people and also locals from other regions across Indonesia
because while they speak the national language, they have not
forgotten their native tongue. They speak among themselves in
their language of Javanese, Batak or another regional dialect.

All prominent Sundanese figures concerned over the fate of
their language agreed that the main culprit was "cultural
contamination" and that parents, unprepared to face this
situation, did not realize the importance of a regional language
as part of Indonesia's wealth.

Yus Rusyana said, "As a matter of fact, a Sundanese can only
speak Indonesian well and correctly if they have been accustomed
to speaking in their native tongue early in life. This also
applies to other regional languages: Javanese, Batak, etc. This
is not a mere theory but the result of my own research."

Presently, the Sundanese language is not taught adequately at
school. What is sadder to learn is the fact that many teachers of
Sundanese cannot speak the language properly. Understandably,
their pupils find it difficult to speak Sundanese properly.