About Indonesian Language

I never really thought much about it, until just recently, in a comment to my last post (About Batak), Elinjo (in Blogit) mentioned that Indonesian language, as Indonesian official language is planned and relatively new. It struck my mind that it is not a common case in the world, so, there must be something interesting about it..

Come to thing of it.. now I realise why it is often difficult to translate an expression from other languages to Indonesian. Also, the grammar is so technical that there is almost no irregularity.

To make sense of what I'm trying to say here, I will start from the beginning..

The different languages and culture of each ethnic group made the inhabitants of the archipelago, although living side-by-side, were always staying at their own localities (at that time, were still in forms of Kingdoms) and sticking to their own people. Only tradesmen and scholars would travel around to other Kingdoms (these people would even travel to Middle East and India).

The Dutch came and applied the perfect strategy in conquering the multi-ethnic archipelago. Their strategy was called 'Devide et Impera' (Divide and conquer). With that strategy, the Dutch was successful in ruling archipelago for 350 years (the exception were Malaysia and Singapore, which were taken over by the British).

As always, military occupation was never necessarily meant a nation's intention. Throughout the time, there were always scholars who made it to do their higher education in Holland. There, they met scholars from other archipelago kingdoms and realised that to be able to overthrow Dutch ruling, they needed to unite, and to be able to unite, they needed a common ground.

They communicated it to their people back in their localities and the idea was well-reciprocated. They tried to gather all youth from around the archipelago.

The first congress was not successful as not many representatives came and they could not came up with a plan. They didn't give up though, on the 28th of October 1928, they held the 2nd youth congress and finally they came up with the common grounds they were looking for: One Land, One Nation and One Language.. Indonesia!

That was how Indonesian language was agreed to be the national language. Along with that agreement, there were no more little kingdoms in the archipelago. Everyone, every nationality was dissolved into one. Each person must put aside their differences, their pride of their background, to be able to become one part of the big future.. one united country.. one freedom.

What is Indonesian language anyway?

Well, it was originally taken from the language of the Malay ethnic group (another ethnic group from North Sumatra apart from Batak). These ethnic group is closely related with the people around the Malacca Strait (Singapore and Malaysia area around the Strait). Their language came from the same root and can easily be associated with/translated to other archipelago languages.

The downside, however, the newly-born language, definitely lack attachment to cultural development, as it was never really attached to any particular culture. The expressions are forms of grammatically correct sentences. It is a good language to teach as it has been made simple (no tenses and verbs are completed by suffixes), but it bears no deep cultural identity, apart from the spirit of united Indonesia.

The fast development of Indonesia language happened during Japanese occupation, between 1942-1945 (when the Dutch surrendered their position in Indonesia to the Japanese). The Japanese banned Dutch language from being used in Indonesia and encouraged Indonesian to use Indonesian language.

The development of communication finally led Indonesian people to the full-scale of unity, where finally, they successfully proclaimed their independence on the 17th of August 1945.

How are ethnic groups and ethnic languages in Indonesia nowadays?

For families which marriages are still within their own ethnic group (not necessarily arranged marriage, just by personal preference), they usually still speak their ethnic language at home. Indonesian language is learned and spoken mostly at school and at work. Whenever people enrol their children to school, the form always asks, 'Mother Tongue' or 'Home Language' .. so, ethnic languages are still recognised and practiced.

For families which marriages are of mixed culture, usually the mother's ethnic language is more strongly used (although not always), if the family practices the use of ethnic language at home. In a lot of cases though, these mix families use Indonesian at home.

The good thing about this, Indonesian language is beginning to be attach to cultural development as it is being used as a family/every day language.

The downside though, ethnic language in these families are disappearing (by being replaced with Indonesian).

It is a sad reality, but the truth is.. natural disappearance and extinction are inevitable in a lot of aspects in life. The only thing we can try is to avoid it from happening by force.

During the time I lived in Melbourne, I met Australians who spoke perfect Javanese in perfect Jogjakarta accent. I also met Australians who knew more of Indonesian culture than I did (I actually met a Pencak Silat -Indonesian traditional martial arts- teacher, who had travelled around Indonesia to learn all the original branches of the traditional martial arts).

I have also heard from people who have travelled to Holland that finding Indonesian food or culture there was easy. A lot of people know about it and a lot of people speak Indonesian or Indonesian ethnic languages.

Reading the news and watching TV, I've come to learn that nowadays, even the most hidden culture and language can be deciphered by experts!

I think this is really amazing..

Culture and language might extinct from being practiced, but they never really disappeared from the face of the earth.

Curiosity and Unity have brought us all closer together..

The world has become so big but also so small at the same time.. Our culture have become the world's culture.. Our knowledge has become the world's knowledge..

Each of us is a little part of the big world of culture and knowledge..

-20 October 2009-

Indonesian Folklores and Legends

Indonesia consists of more than 250 ethnic groups, which speak more than 500 different languages.

From all these ethnic groups, a lot of folklores and legends have arisen. Many books have been published to spread the knowledge of these stories to the young generations, and now, there are also blogs that attempt to collect those stories for people to read.

I believe that there are a lot of people who would like to read these stories, so I put a link to a good blog that I recently found while looking for folklores to tell my son, Ariq.

This particular blog is written in Indonesian, and I am thinking (I'm trying not to disappoint anyone by saying 'seriously planning') to translate these stories to English. I am also still trying to find if there is any blog for Indonesian folklores and legends that is written in English.

Here is the link.. http://legendakita.wordpress.com .

Wish me luck, and enjoy the stories

Learning History from Extraordinary Books

For a few days, I have been reading two books about history. First is, Dee Brown's book, 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'. It is a very good book. Even though the book is about history, it is not boring at all. Some reviews stated that the book was based a lot on the Native Americans' memory and comments, but since I came from a country who suffered colonialisation, I can understand the story. Some statements might have been exaggerated (as the author stated), but the idea of two completely different cultures that clashed in the worst possible way, when their contradicting needs collided, made the same sense with Indonesian history.

From reading this book, I begin to understand that Indonesia did not suffer the worst of the world's conquest story, in a way. The culture clash between Indonesian and Portuguese, English and Dutch was not as extreme as the clash that happened between the Native Americans with the Spanish and English

Before the Europeans came to Indonesia, Indonesians were already living as kingdoms (there were a lot of small kingdoms around archipelago), with the structure of a country, only in small areas. There were tribal groups, but these tribes were considerably untouched by the Europeanse anyway, since they live far from the shores. Some of these tribes are still living very traditionally to this day.

More than that, Indonesians at that time were already aware of outsiders as we were in the end of 'Silk Road' trading route which went from Middle East to India, to China and to the archipelago (several different kingdoms at that time, around Sulawesi, Java and Sumatra).

The arrival of Europeans who at first intended to buy spices took Indonesians off guard. Trading was not a new thing for them, plus the distinguished features of the Europeans (compared to Indians and Middle Eastern traders who were reasonably physically similar) awed the local people. Once the trade started to turn into something else completely different (like land transferring, etc.), then it was already too late for Indonesians to defend themselves.

Yes, we were colonialised, but the previous encounters with outsiders gave Indonesians a different way of fighting (to combine with the physical fight). In the old days, great kingdoms of Sriwijaya (Sumatra) and Majapahit (Java), had their golden times of being the centre of Hindu and Budha learning of the world after their elders came back from India to learn from the sources of the religion. Many students from other parts of the world had come to learn in the two kingdoms. So, having visitors was not a new thing for the local peole.

Some other people had also gone to India and Middle East, to learn about Islam. So, going overseas to study was not a new thing either for the people of the archipelago.

This is the way that was taken by some of financially-able Indonesians during the Dutch ruling too. They went to Holland to study (not kidnapped), then they brought back their knowledge and motivation to strengthen their fight towards independence.

'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' was written and published about 200 years after the war. Now, a lot of the native tribes have vanished forever without any descendant. The culture clash was too extreme to overcome when it was happening.. It was a very sad reality..

The second book I have been reading is Langit Kresna Hariadi's book, 'Gajah Mada' (the first of 4-series novel). This book is a fiction based on true events and timeline of Majapahit Kingdom, where Gajah Mada was an advisor (position of Prime Minister and War Advisor of the Kingdom). He was famous for his pledge to bring the archipelago together under one nation. He started off his career as a soldier but because of his personality, skills and wisdom, he became a well-respected person in the entire Indonesian history, even better known than some kings.

The series told the stories of the culture, politics and strategies in Majapahit Kingdom, including the rebellions and treacheries occurred. Even though the additional characters are fictional, the timeline of occurring events, characters of history and overall plots were based on known real history. Additional details were added to fill in the holes, based on best estimates putting local cultures and viewpoints into considerations. These made the whole story told was as close as possible to the real history.

Indonesia has only been a free country for 60 years (after the declaration of independence from colonialisation).. so, it might take more than a century for something similar to this book to surface from people's memories and comments. A lot of parts of the culture and traditions would probably have vanished by that time too (although the population is nowhere near extinction).

Indonesians are taught Indonesian History as a compulsory subject at school, from Primary to Senior High School. However, they way history is introduced to students is not in the way which can motivate young generations to keep fighting for growth and development.

Moreover, the way World History is taught to students is as if the world is a completely separate place to where we are (that's probably how most history books are written).

In general, I believe that if history teachers (and students) read these two books (and other books written in similar manner), they will be able to give students a better chance to relate to Indonesian and world's history, to learn better from the history.

In the case of education in Indonesia, I believe that this approach will have a good chance to bring back the greatness of the old kingdoms, learn from the mistakes that people did and create a better future for Indonesia.