The fate of Bahasa Indonesia and the borrowing of foreign words

The fate of Bahasa Indonesia and the borrowing of foreign words
or
The fate of Bahasa Indonesia and language borrowing
or
The fate of Bahasa Indonesia, an evolving language

------------------------------
Setiono
Lecturer
Atma Jaya Catholic University
Jakarta
------------------------------

The existence of Western words in Bahasa Indonesia,
particularly English, shows that language borrowing or language
mixing has taken place. Many feel that this is a form of
linguistic colonialism that could threaten the survival of the
national language. This phenomenon has indeed become trendy at
all levels from teenagers to politicians. They often either
deliberately or spontaneously throw in a sprinkling of English
words in their native language.

This language phenomenon -- the mixing of the native language
and foreign words -- has been popularly termed Indlish
(Indonesian-English), which is analogous with the previously
coined terms Singlish (Singaporean-English) and Japlish
(Japanese-English).

The influx of English words has increased significantly in
various domains such as in politics, economics, technology,
commerce, industry, the mass media, and government
administration.

The excessive use of English words in the above domains is
motivated by both linguistic and sociolinguistic factors. From
the linguistic viewpoint the use of Indlish can be viewed as due
to at least four fundamental reasons:

First, the unavailable stock of vocabulary in Bahasa Indonesia
encourages Indonesian people to import words from the English
language. In anticipation of a proliferation of modern
technological concepts or products, Indonesians feel that there
is an urgent need to borrow words that cannot be found in their
native language. As a result of this "lexical gap", they fuse and
even code switch English words with Indonesian so that it may
sound typically Indlish.

Second, Indonesian people may mix English words in their
language if they feel that the existing terms in their own
language are either inadequate or incapable of distinguishing
things or concepts represented by the terms. That is to say that
the meaning of English words is so distinctive that it is
difficult to find the precise equivalent in their native
language. Thus, the words mutasi, reformasi, organisasi,
komisi, asosiasi, etc. are just simply adopted by adjusting their
phonology and mixed into Bahasa Indonesia due to the subtle and
distinctive meanings these words possess.

Third, the use of English words by presenters, commentators,
and journalists is motivated by the nature of their work which
requires the immediate understanding and response from their
interlocutors. Consequently, since English words are far more
efficient than their Indonesian equivalent, their use is badly
needed. Or, as linguist Uriel Weinreich once put it, the presence
of loanwords in any borrowing language can be accounted for by
the fact that using ready made designations is more economical
than describing things afresh. Another reason encouraging
Indonesian society to adopt English is concerned with
"euphemistic" purposes.

Thus, there is a tendency among Indonesians to substitute
existing Bahasa Indonesia words with English since the latter
have more refined 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 president, which are considered coarse
in the community.

Finally, due to its receptivity toward foreign languages, the
English words can be easily mixed or transformed into a Bahasa
Indonesia affixation. For instance, the following Indlish
utterances can often be heard: Mentransfer dana (to transfer
fund), dimodifikasi (being modified), diasosisikan dengan (being
associated with), and many others.

Apart from linguistic factors, sociolinguistic aspects also
play a significant role in encouraging Indonesians to produce
Indlish in their utterances. The belief that English is a
prestigious and internationally recognized language cannot be
separated from the social values of the language community
concerned. Therefore, if the Indonesians have a positive attitude
toward English words, they are more likely either to borrow or
code switch them into their language in order to display their
social status.

It is also interesting to note that sometimes both language
borrowing and code switching are expressed together, as shown in
the following statement: Terjadinya keributan dewasa ini
mengindikasikan lemahnya law enforcement (the riots that happened
recently indicate poor law enforcement).

The above points demonstrate that the attitudes of speakers of
a given language community influence the extent to which language
mixture occurs. This is indeed in line with the word-coining
policy that stipulates that "in case there is no appropriate
terms for the borrowed words in Bahasa Indonesia or its language
family, the terms can be taken from a foreign language".

Cultural contact may also -- to a large extent -- have an
impact on language mixture or even language change. This cultural
influence may accordingly trigger language borrowing from one
country to another. Usually, a less developed country would
borrow extensively from a more dominant or advanced country, as
Indonesian borrows from English and the Dutch.

With regard to this cultural penetration, it is amazing to
note that a relatively advanced country such as Japan has also
imported a tremendous number of English loanwords in the domains
mentioned above. In fact, Japanese people admit that the lexical
limitation in certain domains motivates them to adopt words from
English. The words computer and television, for instance, have
been adopted in the Japanese words konpyuta and terebi,
respectively.

Both linguistic and sociolinguistic factors discussed above
provide a clear justification that the term Indlish and also
Japlish, if they are truly understood as language borrowing, and
thus language mixture, should be regarded as an inevitable
language phenomenon. Loyalty to the mother tongue per se is just
insufficient, or extremely speaking, impossible.

The extent to which one language is favored or preferred will
depend very much on the community' attitude or perception of the
language used. In other words, the creative use of a language is
not the sole prerogative of the language specialists or central
authority. The fact that the National Center for Language
Development (Pusat Pembinaan Bahasa) fails in its mission to
promote the use of the national language among the Indonesian
people supports the above statement.