Use Indonesian to reach market, says Wardiman

JAKARTA (JP): Use Indonesian and reach a wider market, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro said on Wednesday night.

"With one language your message can reach every single person," Wardiman said in another sales pitch to encourage local and foreign business executives to use Bahasa Indonesia in selling their products.

Wardiman took his campaign for proper and correct usage of Bahasa Indonesia to the business community during a dinner function at the Enteos Club in Jakarta.

The minister said Bahasa Indonesia is now spoken by more than 80 percent of the country's population of 196 million people.

According to 1990 statistics, some 27 million people in Indonesia, or 17 percent of the total, were still unfamiliar with Bahasa Indonesia and are still using local dialects and languages.

By the year 2010, when the population is expected to reach 215 million, it is hoped that every single Indonesian will be speaking the language, though in different degrees of fluency, he said.

Hopefully, "the Aceh people will be able to talk directly to the Asmat, the Batak people to the Balinese, without any translation," he said.

Wardiman ignored arguments that advertisers want to use a foreign language, particularly English, in commercials to attract high income buyers.

"Copywriters should be proud of themselves if they can reach a wider market," he said.

In the course of campaigning for Bahasa Indonesia, Wardiman found one constraint with the use of Filipinos as copywriters, who, after gaining experience in American companies, are not familiar with Indonesian.

However he also said that the campaign against the unnecessary use of foreign languages does not mean the use of foreign languages is totally banned here.

Two expatriates told The Jakarta Post they welcomed the campaign.

"Using Indonesian helps us understand your culture better," said an Australian, John Beard, the President of the International Golf Corporation which is constructing golf courses in West Java.

Another executive in the golf business, Mike Gramelis, said "I'm sentimental myself about using indigenous terms."

Gramelis, head instructor from the American-based John Jacobs Golf Academy, works at the Bogor Lakeside Golf Club, which is now called Klub Golf Bogor Raya.

Although name changes involve large costs, Gramelis said the regulation would not pose any problem as the golf course has yet to be completed.

If a name change is conducted when a company and its product is established, he said, the problem would be a loss of identity.

Also attending the meeting with executives was noted linguist Anton D. Moeliono, who heads the Center for Language Promotion and Development.

The Center acts as a 'referee' of terms and names changed into Indonesian. It has published a book on the subject for public reference.

Moeliono reminded that the changes must take Indonesian grammar into account.

Referring to a billboard in Central Jakarta, he said a change from Lido Resort to Lido Resor should be Resor Lido.

He told the Post that the Center has decided that the strange- sounding word resor is allowed as long as there is no acceptable Indonesian word, apart from the longer peristirahatan.

"There is sanggra from the Sanskrit sanggraloka, but that would be too Javanese," he said.

He told the executives that "the gist of the campaign is redefining national identity."

Moeliono pointed out that the Indonesian vocabulary has grown to reach more than 75,000 words from around 25,000 nearly 50 years ago.

The additional words include the adaptation of local tongues and thousands of words derived from Chinese, Arabic, Tamil, Persian and Portuguese. (anr)