LANGUAGE ATTITUDES TOWARD BAHASA INDONESIA

INTRODUCTION
One of the current problems confronting Southeast Asian countries today is conce
rning with national language development. The problem involves not only the gene
ral question of national language policy but also the technical question of nati
onal language development and standardization. The problem lies in the fact that
most of the countries in the area are multilingual. This fact also happens in I
ndonesia where multilingualism affects the development of Bahasa Indonesia.
Bahasa Indonesia keeps changing either in usage or in function as the time goes
on. This change also causes the change of Indonesian attitudes toward Bahasa Ind
onesia. The language attitudes of Indonesian people toward Bahasa Indonesia migh
t be positive or negative.
The positive attitudes are shown in the use of the standard Bahasa Indonesia in
the right place and right time. And the negative attitudes are shown in the use
of non-standard Bahasa Indonesia and another different language in the wrong pla
ce and wrong time.
DISCUSSION
Language Attitude
Some language-attitudes studies are strictly limited to attitudes toward the lan
guage itself. However, most often the concept of language attitudes includes att
itudes towards speakers of a particular language; if the definition is even furt
her broadened, it can allow all kinds of behavior concerning language to be trea
ted (e.g. attitudes toward language maintenance and planning efforts) (Fasold 19
84: 148).
Attitudes are crucial in language growth or decay, restoration or destruction: t
he status and importance of a language in society and within an individual deriv
es largely from adopted or learnt attitudes. An attitude is individual, but it h
as origins in collective behavior. Attitude is something an individual has which
defines or promotes certain behaviors. Although an attitude is a hypothetical p
sychological construct, it touches the reality of language life. Baker stresses
the importance of attitudes in the discussion of bilingualism. Attitudes are lea
rned predispositions, not inherited, and are likely to be relatively stable; the
y have a tendency to persist. However, attitudes are affected by experience; thu
s, attitude change is an important notion in bilingualism. Attitudes vary from f
avorability to unfavorability. Attitudes are complex constructs; e.g. there may
be both positive and negative feelings attached to, e.g. a language situation.
Fasold suggests that attitudes toward a language are often the reflection of att
itudes towards members of various ethnic groups (Fasold 1984: 148): people's rea
ctions to language varieties reveal much of their perception of the speakers of
these varieties.
Bahasa Indonesia
Indonesian is a 20th century name for Malay. Depending on how you define a langu
age and how you count its number of speakers, today Malay-Indonesian ranks aroun
d sixth or seventh in size among the world's languages. With dialect variations
it is spoken by more than 200 million people in the modern states of Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
Malay is just one of many scores, perhaps hundreds, of different languages in th
e area now occupied by the Republic of Indonesia. In 1928 the Indonesian nationa
list movement chose it as the future nation's national language. Its name was ch
anged to Bahasa Indonesia, literally: "the language (bahasa) of Indonesia". In E
nglish we call the language "Indonesian": it is not correct to call it simply "B
ahasa".
Indonesian is not related, even remotely, to English. Nor is it related to the i
nland languages of New Guinea, the Aboriginal languages of Australia or the Sino
-Tibetan languages of China and continental Southeast Asia. Indonesian belongs t
o the Austronesian language family which extends across the islands of Southeast
Asia and the Pacific. Other languages in this family include Malagasy (spoken o
n Madagascar off the coast of Africa), Javanese (famous for its extraordinarily
elaborate system of honorific speech levels), Balinese (the language of the beau
tiful Hindu island of Bali), Tagalog or Filipino (the national language of the P
hilippines), and Maori (the language of the indigenous Polynesian people of New
Zealand). Some Indonesian words have been borrowed into English, among them the
common words gong, orangoutan and sarong, and the less common words paddy, sago
and kapok. The phrase "to run a mock" comes from the Indonesian verb amuk (to ru
n out of control killing people indiscriminately).
The History of Indonesian
From earliest recorded times Malay was, and still is, the native tongue of the p
eople who live on both sides of the Straits of Malacca that separate Sumatra fro
m the Malay Peninsula. Because the Straits have always been a busy sea thoroughf
are, countless travelers and traders came into contact with its language. Over t
he centuries they bore Malay throughout the islands of Indonesia and the languag
e became a widely used lingua franca, especially in coastal areas. This is one o
f the main reasons why, in the 20th century, Malay was chosen as the national la
nguage of the Indonesian republic and why it has played such an important role i
n forging Indonesia's unity.
Malay has also functioned as a court language. It was evidently the language of
the Sumatran Empire of Sriwijaya (9th to 14th centuries). It was also the langua
ge of the greatest of all medieval Malay states, Malacca. When Malacca was subju
gated by the Portuguese in 1511, its traditions were scattered far and wide and
inspired the court culture of smaller successor states like Johor-Riau, Kelantan
and Aceh. So modern Indonesian, too, basks in the glow of prestige which adhere
s to the language from centuries of use in indigenous administration and court a
rts.
Malay has always been a language of trade and business. The medieval city-state
of Malacca, like the renaissance European city-states of Genoa and Venice, and t
he modern city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore, thrived on trade. The Malay la
nguage came to be used for commerce throughout the Indonesian archipelago, so mu
ch so that a special, "boiled-down" variant of the language developed which beca
me known as market Malay or bazaar Malay (BahasaMelayu Pasar). Thanks to this tr
adition, Malay seems to have adapted vigorously to the challenges of modern comm
erce. In modern Indonesia, the Indonesian language is easily the dominant langua
ge of business, especially at the middle and upper levels (local languages domin
ate in the rural market economy).
When Islam came to the Indonesian region it spread along trade routes and throug
h coastal trading cities where Malay was used. Malay became linked with Islam an
d played a crucial role in the rise of Islam as the majority faith in the archip
elago. Malay was also the language most widely used in the propagation of Christ
ianity, especially in the now largely Christianized areas of East Indonesia. In
other words, Islam and Christianity helped spread Malay, and Malay helped spread
Islam and Christianity. Established religion has an important place in the Repu
blic of Indonesia - there is even a powerful Department of Religion in the centr
al government. Today the Indonesian language is associated with the â modernâ religio
ns of Islam and Christianity, and participates in their social prestige and spir
itual power.
From the 17th century on, as the islands of Indonesia fell little by little unde
r the control of the Netherlands, Malay came to be used by the European rulers a
s the most important medium of communication between government and people. Unli
ke in many other colonies, in Indonesia the language of the European rulers was
not forced upon the local populace. Only small elite of indigenous Indonesians e
ver learned the Dutch language, and consequently Malay, although still very much
a minority language in the Indies, was crucial to the smooth administration of
the colony. When the Japanese invaded the Netherlands East Indies in 1942 one of
their first measures was to prohibit use of the Dutch language. Since very few
Indonesians knew Japanese, Malay (now called Indonesian) had to be used in admin
istration even more widely and intensively than it had been under the Dutch. Wit
h this track record of use in modern administration Indonesian easily and natura
lly assumed the mantle of official language and language of government under the
Republic. Today all government business: legislation, administration, justice,
defense, education, national development and so on is conducted wholly in Indone
sian.
A good deal of the modern prestige of Indonesian comes from its role in the coun
tryâ s nationalist movement. But in the early years of the century Malay was not an
obvious or unanimous choice as the language of indigenous cultural and politica
l revival in the then Netherlands East Indies. At first, nationalism was as much
expressed through Dutch, or through the languages of Indonesia's local cultures
, as it was through Malay. It was only with the famous Young Peopleâ s Vow (Sumpah
Pemuda) formulated at the Congress of Young People in 1928 that the very name â Ind
onesianâ was formally adopted and the language declared the pre-eminent language o
f Indonesia as well as the language of national unity. When the Indonesian natio
nalists emerged from the shadow of the Japanese occupation in 1945 to declare an
independent republic, the Proclamation of Independence was uttered in Indonesia
n. Both the state philosophy of Pancasila and the Constitution were framed in In
donesian. The subsequent victory of the Republic in the Revolution (1945-1949) c
onsolidated the prestige of the language and gave its development unstoppable mo
mentum.
Language Attitudes toward Bahasa Indonesia
The Functions of Indonesian Today
Indonesians are overwhelmingly bilingual; indeed many people have a good command
of three of four languages. In infancy most people learn at least one of the co
untry's many local languages and later learn Indonesian at school or in the stre
ets of cities or from television and radio. It is not clear how many people lear
n Indonesian in infancy as their very first language, but at the dawn of the 21s
t century it cannot be less than 20% of the country's population, and this perce
ntage is steadily rising. Indonesian tends to be most used in the modern environ
ment of major urban areas. The local languages tend to dominate in rural areas a
nd small towns, and are most used in homes, fields and markets.
Indonesian is the medium of instruction in educational institutions at all level
s throughout the country. In the early years of the Republic, local languages co
ntinued to be used in some places as the medium of instruction in the first year
s of primary school but this practice has now almost entirely disappeared. In sc
hools and universities most textbooks are in Indonesian, but at the tertiary lev
el, especially in highly specialized courses and at the advanced level of study,
textbooks in English are also widely used.
Although there are several newspapers in English and Chinese, their circulation
is relatively small and Indonesian is by far the dominant language in the countr
y's print media. Indonesia's domestic Palapa satellite system brings television
to almost every corner of the country. With the exception of some newscasts in E
nglish and a small number of cultural programs in regional languages, domestic p
rograms are entirely in Indonesian, and almost all programs of foreign origin ar
e dubbed into Indonesian or have Indonesian-language sub-titles. Similarly Indon
esian dominates in the very diverse and vibrant domain of radio broadcasting, al
though there are a small number of specialist programs in English and in some lo
cal languages.
In politics, administration and the judiciary Indonesian is the sole official la
nguage. It is the language of legislation, political campaigning, national and l
ocal government, court proceedings and the military. In some instances, judges m
ay refer to old statutes and court records in Dutch to help them reach their dec
isions. In some rural areas of the country, for example in the hinterland of Jav
a and in the mountains of West Papua, local languages may also play a role in ad
ministration and in the propagation of government policies.
Indonesia hosts a sparkling variety of traditional verbal arts (poetry, historic
al narratives, romances, drama etc.) which are expressed in local languages, but
modern genres are expressed mainly through Indonesian. Modern literature (novel
s, short stories, stage plays, free-form poetry etc.) has developed since the la
te years of the 19th century and has produced such internationally recognized fi
gures as novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer, dramatist W.S. Rendra, poet Chairil Anw
ar and cinematographer Garin Nugroho. Indonesian is also the language of the nat
ion's breezy, inventive popular arts: TV melodrama and comedy, pop novels, popul
ar songs, cartoons and comics.
Indonesian also dominates as the language of modern business. Needless to say, i
n enterprises that involve expatriate staff or international transactions Englis
h, Japanese, Chinese and other foreign languages are widely used often side-by-s
ide with Indonesian. At the grass-roots level, in the countryâ s many thousands of
village markets, Indonesian has only a marginal role to play and the local langu
ages still prevail.
Given the extraordinary diversity of Indonesia it is not easy to see, even more
than half a century after Independence, what Indonesians have in common - what d
efines Indonesia as a nation. Perhaps more than anything the country's unity and
identity come from its national language. Nevertheless the emergence of separat
ist movements after the fall of President Soeharto in 1998 reminds us that the n
ationalist effort to forge a sense of unity and common identity is still unfinis
hed and that the Indonesian language can also be a language of separatist activi
sm, as it has been in areas as disparate as East Timor, Aceh and West Papua.
The Standard Language and Variation
Indonesian is a very diverse language, but it has a broadly acknowledged standar
d form that is used in formal discourse from one end of the country to the other
. This standard form owes its origins mainly to the Balai Pustaka publishing hou
se set up by the colonial rulers of the East Indies in 1917. Balai Pustakaâ s title
s were (and still are) widely used in schools. In editing the language of its bo
oks and magazines the Dutch and Indonesian staff of Balai Pustaka gave priority
to the formal, literary Malay of Central Sumatra rather than the very varied and
salty language of streets, markets and popular publications across the whole le
ngth and breadth of the country.
During the Second World War the Japanese rulers of Indonesia set up a Language C
ommission (Komisi Bahasa) the purpose of which was to create new terms and to sy
stematically develop Indonesian as a nation-wide language of administration and
modern technology. After independence the Language Commission went through sever
al incarnations culminating in the establishment in 1975 of the Centre for Langu
age Development (Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa usually shortened to Pu
sat Bahasa) under the Governmentâ s Department of National Education. The Centre fo
r Language Development continues to undertake research on Indonesian, creating n
ew terms and providing support for the standardisation and propagation of the la
nguage. Among its initiatives have been the publications of a standard grammar T
ata Bahasa Baku Bahasa Indonesia (A Standard Grammar of Indonesian, 1988) and a
standard dictionary, the Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (A Comprehensive Dictionar
y of Indonesian, 1988). It has encouraged people to use an officially endorsed s
tyle of formal Indonesian promoted under the slogan Gunakan Bahasa Indonesia yan
g baik dan benar (Use good and correct Indonesian).
The way Indonesian is used by high-ranking officials and in government documents
also provides models imitated throughout the country. The print media and telev
ision too are key sources of models. Indeed the nation's "serious" newspapers an
d magazines like, for example, the dailies Kompas and Republika, and the weekly
newsmagazines Tempo and Gatra have made a point of creating new terms and cultiv
ating innovation in formal style.
Like all languages Indonesian displays dialect variation. The main dialect divis
ion is between the northern dialect (today called Malay or Malaysian) spoken in
Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and the southern dialect spoken in Indonesia. Th
e southern variant may in turn be divided into two broad dialect domains, the we
stern and the eastern, each having slightly different patterns of stress and int
onation and some differences in vocabulary. The western variant is spoken throug
hout Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa and most of Sulawesi. The
eastern variant often referred to roughly and popularly as Ambonese Malay, is sp
oken in the north of Sulawesi, the islands of Maluku, in Flores, Timor and in We
st Papua. Within both western and eastern dialect domains there are local dialec
ts shaped by the influence of local languages. Among the easily identifiable sma
ller dialects are those of the Batak people of north Sumatra, the Minangkabau pe
ople of west Sumatra, the people of Jakarta, the Javanese, the Balinese and many
 more.
Indonesian also displays dramatic differences in register and style. As in all m
odern languages, there is a general contrast between formal and informal usage.
Formal Indonesian is most used in writing, public speeches and in education. It
is characterized by use of the full range of affixes and by a big, diverse vocab
ulary with a high incidence of esoteric terms from foreign or classical language
s. Informal Indonesian is used in conversation and is characterized by the dropp
ing of certain affixes, especially the prefix ber-, and the liberal borrowing of
idioms from local languages. Informal usage merges into street slang or youth s
lang peppered with particles like dong, deh and sih, sarcastic or humorous abbre
viations, deliberate 'misunderstandings' of words, and components borrowed from
local languages, like the Jakartan verbal suffix -in and the Javanese first pers
on agent pronoun tak. The Prokem slang of Jakarta, which started out as a secret
language of street kids and toughs, has entered the trendy speech of young peop
le throughout the country, giving everyday currency to words like bokap (father,
a transformation of bapak ), doi (she/he, a transformation of dia ), and ogut (
I/me, a transformation of gua ). In the speech of some people, code-switching is
the norm with incessant jumping between Indonesian and a regional language, or
(among the educated middle-class) between Indonesian and English.
Writing and Spelling Indonesian
The very earliest records in Malay are inscriptions on stone using a syllable-ba
sed script derived from the indigenous scripts of India. With the coming of Isla
m in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Arabic script was adopted to write
Malay. Called Jawi script (huruf Jawi) or Arab-Malay script (huruf Arab-Melayu),
today this script is still used in Malaysia and Brunei in a small number of pub
lications, most notably in the Kuala Lumpur daily newspaper Utusan Melayu.
In Indonesia, Roman or Latin script (the script you are reading now) began to be
used to write Malay from the latter half of the 19th century, and by the early
years of the 20th century it had effectively displaced Jawi script. At first the
spelling of Malay was chaotic but eventually it stabilized, essentially followi
ng the conventions of Dutch spelling. Small adjustments were made to this spelli
ng in 1947 (the so-called Soewandi spelling), and a comprehensive overhaul, call
ed the Updated and Improved Spelling (Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan), was implemented
in 1972. The latter reform was significant because, with a few small difference
s, it united the spelling of the Indonesian and Malaysian variants of the langua
ge.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Conclusion
It is concluded that there be two sides in the attitudes toward Bahasa Indonesia
. The first is the positive sides which show the respectful feelings toward Baha
sa Indonesia. For example, the use of standard Bahasa Indonesia in the right tim
e and place such as in official seminar, in educational institutions, in adminis
tration and in the propagation of government policies. The second is the negativ
e sides which is the feelings of underestimating Bahasa Indonesia. For example,
the use of non-standard Bahasa Indonesia in the wrong time and place (i.e. such
the use of youth slang peppered with particles like dong, deh and sih in an off
icial government meeting).
Suggestion
It is suggested that Indonesian people have positive attitudes toward Bahasa Ind
onesia and use Bahasa Indonesia correctly so that Bahasa Indonesia will not be u
nderestimated.
References
Fasold, Ralph W. 1984. The Sociolinguistics of Society Introduction to Socioling
uistics Vol.1. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
http://www.expat.or.id/info/bahasa.html