Language Planning for Modernization: The Case of Indonesian and Malaysian [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9783110819106, 9789027977120

Table of contents :
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter I. The modernization of the languages of the new nations in historical and sociocultural perspective
Chapter II. The rise of the Indonesian and Malaysian language
Chapter III. Problems in the transformation of the Indonesian and Malaysian language
Chapter IV. The expansion and modernization of the vocabulary
Chapter V. The writing of a normative grammar
Chapter VI. The standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language
Chapter VII. The present situation and further perspectives
Notes
References

Citation preview

LANGUAGE PLANNING FOR MODERNIZATION

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

14

Joshua A. Fishman Editor

MOUTON • THE HAGUE • PARIS

Language Planning for Modernization The Case of Indonesian and Malaysian

S. Takdir Alisjahbana

MOUTON • THE HAGUE • PARIS

ISBN 90 279 7712 7 ©

1976, Mouton & Co., The Hague, The Netherlands

Cover design by Jurriaan Schrofer Printed in the Netherlands by Mouton & Co., The Hague

Foreword

This book intends to give a general survey of the history of the development of the Indonesian and Malaysian language, its multifarious problems as well as its future perspectives. In its writing I have taken advantage of my various articles and essays in the Indonesian/Malaysian as well as in the English language which have been published earlier in Indonesia and abroad. It could not be otherwise than that to a certain extent this book is a rearrangement of my ideas on the Indonesian/Malaysian language, which in many respects deviate from the rather formalistic approach of linguistics of the last decades. In my inaugural speech in Kuala Lumpur on December 22, 1964, 'The failure of modern linguistics in the face of linguistic problems of the twentieth century', I formulated my objections to the linguistic ideas of the various branches of structural linguistics and phonology, which under the pretext of descriptive linguistics attempt to describe and investigate the characteristics and relationship of phonemes of a language as the very nucleus of that language. In this science of language signs the content of the language - be it the communicated meaning of words and sentences or the related cultural concept and way of thought - draws less and less attention from linguists under the pretext that it belongs to psychology, logic, anthropology, etc. This sign linguistics which claims to be an autonomous science becomes entirely formalised like the French school of De Saussure, the school of structural linguistics of Bloomfield, the school of Prague or especially the school of Hjelmslev in Copenhagen. It is refreshing to see that during the last years more and more linguists are interested in the interrelationships between languages and the societies or cultures in which they function, as is testified to by the rise of socio- and ethnolinguistics. My objection to sociolinguistics or ethnolinguistics is the wrong presupposition from which it derived. It is clear that language is a product

€

Preface

of society and fulfills the basic function of social communication. But in this sense it does not differ from animal sounds. The very characteristic of language which distinguishes it from animal sounds lies in the fact that it is the expression of the human mind with its thought and evaluating capacities and processes. Viewed from this standpoint, language is inextricably connected with human culture which is the product of the activities of the human mind. On the one hand language is the very basis •of culture, and on the other hand it is moulded by the concepts and Weltanschauung of its culture. It is clear that the term sociolinguistics has been coined in the Anglosaxon tradition which is not used to conceive culture as the product of the activities of the human mind but instead as the product of the activities of society, as formulated by George H. Mead, A. L. Kroeber, Pitirim A. Sorokin and others. The term ethnolinguistics which also lately has been often used refers too much to an outdated ethnology which arose when Western men considered all cultures with the exception of their own as primitive so that ethnology meant the science of the culture of primitive man. In the context of the idealistic Indonesian concept in which culture, kebudayaan, budidaya, clearly refers to budi, the human mind or Geist, the term culturo-linguistics is more appropriate. In the broad concept of culture are included not only civilization in the Toynbeean and Spenglerean sense but also primitive cultures, since both are realizations of the same human mind or Geist or budi. It is clear that the formalistic approach in linguistic studies and research is doomed to fail in facing the great changes or even the great revolution in our present society and culture. The predominant position of social and cultural change in the determination of language change is obvious. We can even say the language change mirrors only the social and cultural change. No linguist can really understand the linguistic changes in the new countries of Asia and Africa without understanding the social and especially the cultural changes, i.e., the changes in the value orientation which are the real facts behind these linguistic changes. In this culture-oriented linguistics the science of linguistics acquires new depth and comprehensiveness because it is not only involved in the great social and cultural transformation of the young countries of Asia and Africa, but it also takes part in the globalizing and universalizing factors in modern society and culture as a result of the speed of transportation and communication and through the widespread international in-

Preface

7

formation via the ubiquitous mass media. It is in this sense that the process of language planning or language engineering must find guidance and direction. The strong globalizing and unifying tendencies of social and cultural life must also find their expression in the converging tendencies of the modern languages. It is not only that modern languages are much nearer to each other than the relationship of languages in any epoch of history because of the growing globalization of societies and the growing unity of the basic concepts of modern secular culture dominated by science, economics and technology. Without the consciousness of the arising world society and culture, linguists in their so-called objectivity are at a loss in the decisions for the growth of their languages. I hope that, given the scarcity of publications on the Indonesian/ Malaysian language, this book will be a contribution. The development of the Indonesian/Malaysian language is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating social, cultural and linguistic phenomena of our age. It is to be hoped that this cultural approach to the development of the Indonesian/Malaysian language will be useful to the other developing languages in Asia and Africa.

Jakarta, December 1975.

S. Takdir Alisjahbana

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his thanks for permission given by the following publishers to include in this book articles or sections of articles published before. 1. The Malaysian Society of Asian Studies, for the article 'The modernization of languages in Asia in historical and sociocultural perspective'. In The Modernization of Languages in Asia. 2. Mouton, The Hague, for the essay 'Indonesian and Malaysian'. In Current Trends in Linguistics, 8. 3. Language Sciences, Indiana University, for the article 'Writing a normative grammar for Indonesia'. In Language Sciences, February 1972.

Contents

Foreword

5

Acknowledgements

9

Chapter I / The modernization of the languages of the new nations in historical and sociocultural perspective

13

1. Comparison of the development of the European languages with that of the new modern Asian and African languages, p. 13; 2. Modernization as a change of cultural value configuration, p. 15; 3. The development of modern progressive culture in Europe, p. 19; 4. The encounter of modern progressive culture with the cultures of Asia and Africa, p. 22; 5. The modernization of the Asian and African languages, p. 24; 6. Converging tendencies in the arising progressive world society and culture and their consequences for the emerging national languages, p. 27; 7. Stages of language modernization in the Asian countries, p. 30.

Chapter II / The rise of the Indonesian and Malaysian language

31

1. The common origin of Indonesian and Malaysian, p. 31; 2. The development of Malay in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial rule, p. 35; 3. The development of the Indonesian language during the Japanese occupation, p. 40; 4. The development of Malay in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, p. 42; 5. The movement for the development of the Malay language and literature, p. 48.

Chapter III / Problems in the transformation of the Indonesian and Malaysian language 1. The relationship of linguistic problems with other spheres of culture, p. 51; 2. The failure of modern linguistics, p. 54; 3. The problems of language engineering, p. 55; 4. The Indonesian and Malaysian language as a synthesis of elements of Malay-Polynesian and modern culture, p. 57; 5. The Indonesian and Malaysian pho-

51

12

Contents nemic, syllabic and word structure, p. 60; 6. The scientific and technological terminology, p. 64; 7. The problems of the Indonesian grammar, p. 65.

Chapter IV / The expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

67

1. The expansion and modernization of the Indonesian vocabulary during the Japanese occupation, p. 67; 2. The Indonesian Language Committee, p. 69; 3. T h e coining of the technical and scientific terminology, p. 70; 4. The vocabulary of daily usage, p. 77; 5. T h e expansion and modernization of the Malaysian language, p. 80.

Chapter V / The writing of a normative grammar

83

1. Principles and purposes, p. 83; 2. Modern linguistics and normative grammar, p. 84; 3. The affixes as core of Indonesian grammar, p. 87; 4. T h e problems of the derivations of the loan words, p. 88; 5. Shift in the frequency of the use of affixes and the acceptance of new affixes through cultural change, p. 90; 6. T h e various factors for the determination of the normative modern grammar, p. 91; 7. Who are the bearers of the modern Indonesian language? p. 93; 8. The task of the grammarian is a creative one, p. 94; 9. The problems of the unification of the Indonesian and Malaysian grammar, p. 96; 10. The new common spelling, p. 98.

Chapter VI / The standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language

101

1. Language behavior as social behavior, p. 101; 2. The special situation of the languages of the new nations, p. 102; 3. The transformation of the Malay language, p. 104; 4. The problems of the standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language, p. 107; 5. The task of the school in the standardization of the Indonesian language, p. 111.

Chapter VII / The present situation and further perspectives

113

1. The history of the struggle for the Indonesian language, p. 113; 2. The shortcomings of the Indonesian language as a modern language, p. 115; 3. Some problems of the modern vocabulary and grammar, p. 118; 4. The necessity of a reorganization of the National Language Institute and the Balai Pustaka, p. 123; 5. The perspective of the unification of the Indonesian and Malaysian language, p. 124.

Notes

127

References

129

CHAPTER I

The modernization of the languages of the new nations in historical and sociocultural perspective

1.

COMPARISON OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUROPEAN LANGUAGES WITH THAT OF THE NEW MODERN ASIAN AND AFRICAN LANGUAGES

The collapse of the all-embracing Christian Empire of the Middle Ages gradually split the countries of Europe into various national units according to geographic and ethnic divisions. Politically these units tended to center around a number of dynastic families. Economically their efforts were directed to a certain degree of autarchic self-sufficiency. The period also witnessed the rise of the towns and the town-dwellers, the bourgeoisie who began to exert great influence on the political, economic and cultural configurations of the new national units. While in the former all-embracing Christian Empire Latin was the dominating language - i.e., the language of the church, officialdom and official correspondence, of science and education - in the arising national states Latin was gradually replaced by national languages, which became an important factor in the formation and further development of these national states. Throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these national languages grew increasingly strong, aided by the discovery of the art of printing, the translation of the Bible and the rise of vernacular literatures under the influence of the Renaissance. With the Aufklärung, the growth of social movements and the institution of compulsory popular education, accompanied by the circulation of unlimited quantities of reading material, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries finally stabilized these languages. The unprecedented development of science, technology and economics in Europe after the Renaissance has had the most unexpected consequences for political, economic and, last but not least, social and cultural life

14

The modernization of the languages

the world over. The European nations grew powerful and rich and in their restlesness expanded as never before in history. In a rather short span of time they came into contact with all parts of the world as seafarers, explorers and adventurers. They conquered a great part of the newly discovered countries so that at the end of the last century nearly the whole of Asia and Africa was under European domination. The Second World War, however, made an end to this situation. The countries of Asia and Africa regained one by one their independence. The interesting fact in this liberation is that even after their independence the Asian and African countries still have to adjust themselves to the social and cultural concepts and ideas of the West which are determined by science, technology and economics. Not only are the political institutions of the new states of Asia and Africa, as were those of Japan, China, and Turkey earlier, built along the line of Western thought which is now called modern, but also the schools from primary grades to university, not to speak of banks, factories, etc., are organized and managed on the same modern basis. In spite of many political controversies the social and cultural modernization which started in Europe after the Renaissance had spread to the countries of Asia and Africa. Since the vocabulary of a language represents the totality of concepts and since the structure of the grammar of a language channels the expression of thoughts, ideas and feelings of a culture and thus mirrors the whole way of life and worldview of its users, there is a dialectical interplay between the modernization of the languages and the modernization of the concepts of thought in Asian and African societies and cultures. The modern concepts which are accepted by the Asian and African mind need adequate expression in their languages, and at the same time the modern grammar and vocabulary mold the Asian and African mind into the framework of modern concepts and ideas. The modernization of the languages of Asia began in the last century, when contact between the cultures of the West and those of the Asian countries gradually became more intensive.1 The language of Japan, for example, was during the last century so modernized that very early it conveyed the concepts and ideas of the modern world oriented towards science, economics and technology. Other Asian and African languages much later reached the same or nearly the same level of modernization, while still others are moving steadily in that direction.

The modernization of the languages 2.

15

MODERNIZATION AS A CHANGE OF CULTURAL VALUE CONFIGURATION

In order to understand the modernization of the languages of Asia and Africa, thus also of the modern Indonesian and Malaysian language, we must first analyze the social and cultural process of modernization, since language is nothing else than the most important means of communication in society as well as the most elaborate system of symbols for the expression of cultural concepts. This process of modernization, indeed, touches on nearly every aspect of social and cultural life and manifests itself in many forms. It is not surprising that various terms have been used to denote this multifarious and complex process. A popular term is Westernization which emphasizes the fact that it has started in the Asian and African countries after their encounter with Western (i.e., European) culture during the last centuries. We shall, however, reject this term in our further discussions. Apart from the relativity of the geographical concepts of East and West, this term derives too much from the unsound proposition that cultures are basically bound to a static geographical location and not primarily a product of the dynamic unfolding of the universal inherent capacities of the human mind. Furthermore, in the political controversies between East and West during the last three centuries, the term Westernization has carried with it a connotation of European cultural superiority and to a certain extent even of domination. It is not astonishing that as a reaction to these facts various efforts have been made aiming at the depreciation of even elimination of the process of modernization. Some even identify this process with the excesses of recent European and especially American culture only. In this atmosphere of animosity and suggestions of inferiority, no adequate acculturation process of cultural growth can take place.2 The multifarious manifestations of the process of modernization as a result of its wide and complex implications are also indicated by a great variety of words, each denoting one or more aspects of this all-inclusive social and cultural process. The term individualization points to the changing attitude of the individual in his social group, the term rationalization to the changing way of thinking, the term industrialization to the shift from agricultural economy to an economy based on the industry of mass production, the term urbanization to the movement of people from the village to the city with its more individualistic, rational and industrialized way of life. Another term very often used is secularization expressing the shift in the total social and cultural orientation, from the

16

The modernization of the languages

holy and eternal sphere of religion towards the profane life in this world. These last terms are more adequate since they denote actual universal processes, which can occur in any cultural community, regardless of geographical location. The word modernization means nothing else than to make modern, and modern means pertaining to the present time, which is very vague and ambiguous. Thus our first task is to uncover the content of the concept of modernization. We have to define the basic concepts as well as the basic forces and values, from which derive the multifarious cultural phenomena which we call modernization. Viewed from this broad standpoint, modern society and culture are recent historical phenomena, even in Europe and America. Because of the instability and the confused criss-crossing of concepts and terms, not only between various disciplines but even within the same discipline in the behavioral sciences, I have first to explain the concepts which I am going to use before embarking on the discussion of the modernization of the languages of Indonesia and Malaysia. My basic assumption is that cultural phenomena are uniquely related to human behavior, as a result of the special capacity of the human mind to evaluate its surrounding world (which includes itself) in contrast to animal behavior which is based on drive and instincts. The human values resulting from this evaluating capacity can be discerned in the theoretical value aiming at the identification of things and processes in our surrounding nature, the economic value aiming at their utilization, the religious value aiming at the holy, the aesthetic value aiming at beauty, the power value aiming at power and the solidarity value aiming at solidarity, i.e., love, friendship, etc. The theoretical value manifests itself in theoretical goods which we usually call knowledge, the economic value in economic goods, the religious value in religious goods, the aesthetic value in aesthetic goods or art products, the power value in power or political relationships and the solidarity value in solidarity relationships. There is a close relationship between the logic of the theoretical value and the economic value, since both are operating with the same law and potentialities of our surrounding nature. While the aim of the theoretical value is to know nature, the aim of the economic value is to use the knowledge of nature for human existence and comfort. Since knowledge and economic goods are cumulative, in the social and cultural process the theoretical and economic evaluating processes form the progressive aspect of culture.

The modernization of the languages

17

There is a close relationship between the religious value and the aesthetic value. Both face our surroundings as expressions of another reality: the religious value as expression of the Holy, or in common parlance, God, the aesthetic value of beauty. Moreover both proceed on the basis of feeling and imagination. The combination of the religious and aesthetic processes I call the expressive aspect of culture. The power value and the solidarity value form together the organizational aspect of culture; the power value can be considered as the vertical axis and the solidarity value as the horizontal axis of social organization. Dominance of the power value indicates a totalitarian social group, dominance of the solidarity value a democratic social group. All these six values are represented in every culture. There is no culture in which there is no knowledge of nature, and there is no culture in which the holy with its tremendum and fascinans does not play a role, even if the group officially rejects religion. The difference between the various cultures through history is not that there are cultures without one or more of the six basic values, but that the patterns, the configurations of the six evaluating processes and thus also of values, are different.3 If we accept these processes as the main interdependent processes determining the system of values, and also the structure and type of culture, we can divide cultures into two types, namely, progressive cultures, in which the theoretical and economic evaluating capacities dominate, and the expressive cultures, in which the religious and aesthetic evaluating capacities dominate. Viewed from this standpoint, what we call the modernization process in the countries of Asia and Africa is nothing else than the change of the configuration of the evaluating process of the cultures of these countries from a dominance of the expressive process into that of the progressive evaluating process. Thus the same progressive evaluating process which during the last four centuries has changed the dominance of expressive evaluating processes of the Middle Ages in Europe into modern culture has now thrown the expressive Asian and African cultures into the throes of rapid social and cultural change and even of revolution. If we speak of the culture of the Middle Ages as an expressive culture, it means that during the Middle Ages the religious value of the holy dominated all the other values or, in other words, the values were to a very great extent subordinated to the fulfillment of the religious values or at least had to submit themselves to rules deriving from the religious value. It was not only the main task of the arts to glorify the holy, but also in

18

The modernization of the languages

economic and political life religious aims and rules were of great importance. The family as a solidarity unit was considered a holy social group which came into being by a religious act. This does not imply that there were no scientific activities in the Middle Ages. We know that our present university as a center of learning has its roots in the Middle Ages. We know that the modernization process which started in the Renaissance was in many ways prepared in the Middle Ages, since social and cultural change are slow processes of growth. But nevertheless we can say that it is in the Renaissance that the process of modernization started. At the time of their encounter with European culture, the countries of Asia and Africa were to a great extent in their social and cultural structure comparable to the European society and culture in the Middle Ages. Thus what we said about the Middle Ages is mutatis mutandis applicable to the social and cultural structure of the countries of Asia and Africa. We know that the achievement of China during the millennia of its existence was tremendous; many of the revolutionizing discoveries of European culture such as printing, the fabrication of paper, gunpowder, etc., took place in China at an earlier stage than in Europe. The same can be said about the culture of Islam. The problem why, for example, Chinese and Islamic cultures have not developed out of themselves modern progressive cultures but had to wait until they could take advantage of the post-Renaissance European culture has always intrigued me. Are there historical, geographical, social or cultural reasons for the incapability of these great cultures to produce independently, out of their own historical and cultural logic, the modern sciences, economics and technology of the twentieth century? Professor Ho Peng Yoke (1967) has discussed 'the failure of traditional Chinese science in giving birth to modern science until the time when it got engulfed into the mainstream of our modern universally valid world science'.4 He related it first and foremost to the dominance of pseudoscientific theories (as from The Book of Change) which acted for a long period as a huge sacred filing cabinet where all information was kept and continuously applied to biology, astronomy, alchemy, medicine, politics and fate calculation, without being subjected to further analysis. In this atmosphere a certain obscurantism dominated. Further are discernible certain persistent nonscientific ideas and ideals, such as the discovery of the elixer of life in alchemy, which prevented a scientific investigation of the stubborn facts of nature. Terminology and its writing also posed an inhibiting factor. Beside these

The modernization

of the languages

19

factors which were closely related to the fact that Chinese science was not yet able to liberate itself from traditional beliefs and to develop scientific scepsis, there were also social and cultural factors such as the separation of scholars from manual work, the state monopoly of astronomy and later also the conquest of China by the Mongols. There is no big difference with the Islamic culture with its strong theological character. We know that various philosophers and religious thinkers have been proclaimed heretics by AlGhazali in his book Tahafut al-Falasifah (Incoherence of the Philosophers). The defence by Ibn Rushd of the philosophers and scientists about fifty years later in his book Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence) was in vain. A s we may remember the same occurred in Europe with Giordano Bruno, Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo. Only in 1822, thus after three hundred years, was it possible to announce openly Copernicus' ideas of the movement of the planets around the sun. We have seen the same phenomena in biological science. It was not possible to proclaim openly the theory of evolution until far into the nineteenth century, when the church had already lost its power. 3.

T H E DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN PROGRESSIVE CULTURE IN EUROPE

The difference between the cultural process in Europe and in the new nations lay in the fact that, although there was a strong resistance in Europe from Aristotelian orthodoxy and Christian theology, the scientific mind remained persistent in its growth and was gradually able to break through them. A scientific revolution took place by a new approach towards nature and by the development of modern mathematics. The scientist gradually insisted on observation and experimentation of nature to establish scientific facts; theological and artistic concepts were more and more rejected in favor of tangible proofs. Especially the development of modern mathematics, related to such names as Descartes, Desargues, Fermat, Roberval and Pascal, was decisive for the development of modern science. Apart from this progress of mathematics, the seventeenth century development of science would have been impossible, says Whitehead (1949, p. 32). The procedures and the ways of stating scientific propositions employed by Rutherford, Einstein and Poincaré were already employed by Galileo, Kepler and Fermat. They had not been employed by their predecessors. Since that time the process, the tactics and the forms by

20

The modernization of the languages

which modern science has evolved have not changed (Nef, 1960, p. 31). Meanwhile at the same time an economic revolution took place which ran parallel to the declining position of the Church and the increase of power of a new nobility, related to the reformation and the arising class of burghers. As has been said, in the Middle Ages the aims of economic endeavor were closely related to the aims of the Church, i.e., the salvation of souls. A great amount of money was spent on the building and maintaining of cathedrals and monasteries to carry out the function of the clergy for the administration of the sacraments. The cathedrals needed expensive religious art in the way of statues, painting, etc. The Church owned large estates, and in the agricultural atmosphere of Europe at that time it had a great influence on the whole of economic life. The opening up of new countries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the ensuing development of trade with various new commodities, brought a new group of factors into the economic life of Europe. The rich merchants and industrialists spent large amounts for their buildings, a new nonreligious art developed to satisfy the need of a new rich secular class. With the reformation, economic life in Europe became less and less directed toward religious needs. European rulers who broke with Rome confiscated monastic properties which became properties of the nobility or the rich city burghers. But despite these great changes in economic life, it was through the encounter of this new group of landed proprietors, merchants and industrialists, who had been stimulated by the expansive mood of the great discoveries of new sea routes and the acquaintance with new commodities, with new methods of enquiry and a new quantitative way of thinking, that we arrive at what is called the industrial revolution. In former times the aim of economic behavior was the achievement of religious and aesthetic values, but, at the end of the sixteenth century a new tendency became stronger and stronger: the production of cheap wares primary for their utility. This tendency went together in Britain with the use of cast and pig iron and coal fuel, and already by the midseventeenth century England had obtained a lead over all other countries in the production of common commodities, the quantity and utility of which - rather than quality and elegance - were the main concern of the makers and the consumers. 'The wholesale use of coal in iron metallurgy made possible the multiplication of iron and even-

The modernization of the languages

21

tually of steel for machine parts and for construction work of many kinds. Steam-driven engines, when applied to manufacturing as well as to mining, led men a long way in the direction of the machine economy characteristic of industrialism. Traction or rails, when combined with the steam engine for haulage, transformed both the movement of the freight and the movement of travellers over land' (Nef, 1960, p. 59). Thus a technological revolution resulted from the social and cultural change, the new method of research and the new way of thinking as well as the use of new materials. Parallel with, or to a certain extent even prior to, the new technological revolution and industrial revolution in Western Europe went a tremendous expansion of commerce that in the annals of European history has traditionally been called the 'commercial revolution of the sixteenth century'. It is said that Lisbon's port on the Tagus River was at its height in the 1540s, literally choked with ships, and that Antwerp at its peak in the 1560s witnessed the passing up and down the Scheldt of five hundred ships a day. Nor is it astonishing that in the thirty-year period prior to 1618, the number of English ships is said to have doubled and that in the middle of the seventeenth century the Dutch had a merchant marine estimated at four times the size of that of all Italy, Spain and Portugal combined (Clough, 1959, p. 148). This expansion of commerce and industry for which more and more capital was needed, gradually developed into a business organization which was able to provide greater capital and at the same time could limit the risk of the enterprises. Thus joint stock companies developed with all the paraphernalia of the growing system of capitalism, such as stock exchange, insurance, etc., and later of socialism. In the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the scientific, commercial, technological and industrial revolution went further, especially in Germany and the U.S.A. Although the use of coal and iron remained, new sources of energy were discovered, such as oil and electricity, resulting in a great diversification of industry. Besides the production of automobiles and airplanes, especially many synthetic products such as synthetic textiles, aspirin, dyes, etc., flooded the market as a result of the development of chemistry. The manipulation of molecular, atomic and subatomic particles, forces and properties later gave new, unparalleled control to man over matter and energy. In this new orientation, based on quantitative methods of reasoning and investigation and the new economic aim of industrial enterprise.

22

The modernization of the languages

and in terms of mass production and mass consumption, a new secular social and cultural atmosphere arises, in which man depends on his own mental and physical capacities, in which the aims of life are sought in the fulfilling of material needs. This scientific, economic and technological revolution through the centuries was accompanied by a political revolution which reached its climax in the French Revolution and which during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has found its crystallization in the fight for the rights and dignity of modern man.

4.

THE ENCOUNTER OF MODERN PROGRESSIVE CULTURE WITH THE CULTURES OF ASIA AND AFRICA

It was this secular culture, resulting from the development since the Renaissance and especially since the sixteenth and seventeenth century, which by its progressive and expansive character came in contact with Asia, Africa and other parts of the world. We know the history of this encounter during the seventeenth, eighteenth and especially during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The eagerness for adventure and economic gain, which were the first motivating forces of European sailors during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, gradually changed to an urge for power, since it was thought that economic aims would be better served if they could be combined with political power. I do not need to repeat the colonial history of the new Asian and African countries, since it is still very fresh in our memory. As has been said, despite the great scientific and technological achievements of the Chinese, the Arab and other Asian and African cultures in the past, at the time of the encounter of the Asian and African cultures with post-Renaissance European culture, these cultures were more or less in the same position as the religious and feudal cultures of the Middle Ages. Social, economic, scientific and artistic life was more or less determined by traditional beliefs and customs. In the self-satisfied atmosphere of the traditional cultures, the defeat by the penetrating European powers was considered only as a defeat in technical capacity and achievement: the Europeans had better ships and especially better weapons. Never has a cultural confrontation on so large a scale been accompanied by such a tragic misunderstanding as the one which

The modernization of the languages 23 occurred during the last centuries in the countries of Asia and Africa. Mighty, imposing cultures with a proud tradition of hundreds, even thousands, of years, suddenly faced a frustrating defeat. All the accumulated wisdom, experience and spiritual powers were mobilized to resist the brutal invaders. Great spiritual leaders arose for the defence of Asia's and Africa's spiritual values and independence, and by their dedication and charisma they were able to gather millions around them (cf. Alisjahbana, 1965a). But all was in vain because the power of these conquering 'barbarians' had its sources in another value system, with another logic and another concept of reality. In order to be able to arrive at the technological achievement of the Europeans and Americans, the same scientific and economic attitude and aims had to be accepted. These countries had to be modernized if they wanted to defend themselves and to participate creatively in modern scientific, economic and technological progress. In one way or another the Asian and African countries have to accept the attitude, logic and aims of the progressive European culture. In the colonial atmosphere during the nineteenth and especially the twentieth century, the opportunity offered itself: the colonial government, in order to fulfill its great ambition of economic gain and political power had to make use of local workers in the various organizations. For this purpose in one way or another it had to teach a small number of the natives its science, technology, economy, its methods and organization. In other countries such as Japan, Turkey, etc., which were never colonized, an internal revolution took place, such as during the Meji Restoration in Japan, the revolution of the Young Turks under Kemal Pasha in Turkey, and many others. After the Second World War, when so many Asian and African countries were liberated from their colonial masters, modernization was everywhere already accepted as a sine qua non of national existence. Modern constitution formulates the modern cultural values. Modern education which had to inculcate the modern values of science, economic goods and technology became the most important task of all the governments of the free countries of Asia and Africa. Economic development, and especially industrialization aiming at the modern welfare state, became the keynote of government policy. The university, the bank, the factory gradually replaced the mosque, the temple, etc., as center of social and cultural life. It is interesting to know to what extent the welfare state with its care

24

The modernization of the languages

for public education, public health, for human rights, etc., will also entail the less pleasant aspects of modern mass culture and entertainment, jazz music, rock and roll, promiscuity, youth delinquency, etc. I think that thinkers such as Sorokin (1941, pp. 106 ff.) and others are right when they qualify this modern progressive culture as materialistic, sensate, hedonistic, etc., and it is fair to suggest that these less pleasant expressions of modern culture are its logical epiphenomena. It is also clear that with the acceptance of this modern secular and progressive culture the various religions in Asia and Africa like the Christian religion in Europe had to respond to its logic and reality (cf. Alisjahbana, 1967) and in many ways suffered a drawback. Without exaggeration we can say that all the great religions are going through a severe crisis in our age. They have adjusted themselves on a higher level of contemplation to the new truth and reality resulting from the achievement of the progress of science, economics and technology. 5.

THE MODERNIZATION OF THE ASIAN AND AFRICAN LANGUAGES

I have been rather extensive in the characterization of the change in the configuration of European culture during the last four centuries, and I have tried to deliniate as sharply as possible the direction of the social and cultural change of the cultures of Asia and Africa after their encounter with European culture. This change is as essential and radical as has been the change which occurred in Europe after the Renaissance, with a shift in world view from God and the afterlife toward the things of this world, along with a shift in the way of thinking and of logic, a revolution in commerce, in technology and in industrialization and the arousal of political equality and human rights. To a certain extent we even can say a recapitulation is taking place in the Asian and African countries of the cultural revolution which has taken place in Europe after the Renaissance. And since in no other evaluating process are the logic and laws as universal as in the scientific and economic value, we can say without exaggeration that it is for the first time that the dominant value and the basic way of thinking are becoming the same the world over. A progressive modern culture based on science, economics and technology is arising in the whole world. Having stated this fact, I can proceed further to discuss the meaning, dimensions and implications of the modernization of the languages of Asia and Africa. The modernization process of the

The modernization of the languages

25

Asian and African languages is the most tangible and all-inclusive proof of the modernization of the societies and cultures of Asia and Africa. We also can say that the modernization process of the Asian and African languages is a projection of the modernization of the Asian and African societies and cultures themselves. It is so often said that language is the soul of the people. This statement has always been the expression of the consciousness of the close relationship between the will, perception, feeling, thinking and imagination of the people and their language, and the importance of language as the expression of the unity and solidarity between individuals of the same group. But in the context of the great modernization process in Asia and Africa today, this metaphor has become even clearer. Language as a system of symbols, expressing the will, perception, feeling, thinking and imagination of the language bearers, is nothing else than the verbal manifestation of the total social and cultural life of the social group. Everything which has been perceived, felt, imagined and conceived in a certain society and culture finds its crystallization in the language of that society and culture. Thus we can say with a certain exaggeration that every culture with its own structure and value configuration, with its own world view, has its own set of concepts and way of thinking, has its own vocabulary and grammar. We also know that during the centuries every language has changed, sometimes in a radical way, with the change of the social and cultural structure and value configuration. In every language there are words which are essential for the configuration of the value system, for the world view of society and culture. These important words can be considered as the core of keywords of that society and culture. Other words are of less importance; they are, viewed from the standpoint of the value system of the culture, at the periphery and are more or less irrelevant to the social and cultural structure. When the Director of the Lembaga Bahasa Nasional (National Language Institute) informs us that its Komisi Istilah (Committee on Terminology) has coined 321,710 terms during its fifteen years of existence, it gives us a clear insight to the great revolution which is taking place in the Indonesian language as a result of the process of modernization, expressing the shift in value orientation of society and culture. These 321,710 words symbolizing modern concepts will play an important role in modern Indonesian society and culture with its emphasis on scientific, economic and technological progress.

26

The modernization of the languages

Many of these words are old Malay words; only the concepts they express are new. Others are newly coined words or loan words, but all of them pushed aside many other old words and concepts, thus changing the old equilibrium of words and concepts of the Malay language into a new equilibrium of the Indonesian language, expressing the structure and values of modern Indonesian society and culture. This is, of course, not the first time that such a change has occurred in the Malay language. Although Indian and Islamic cultures are both expressive cultures, the difference in concepts between them as well as between them and the pre-Hindu Malay culture are substantial enough, so that in the assimilation of Indian as well as Islamic culture a great shift of vocabulary and concepts has taken place in the Malay language. It would be interesting to investigate which words have remained the same during the five hundred years of written Malay, which words have functioned as keywords during the Malay-Indian cultural phase and which during the following Malay-Islamic phase. The permanent words represent the stable framework of concepts of the Malay language, while other words reflect the great cultural changes which have taken place in Malay culture. It is clear that this change of language paralleling the change of cultural structure and value configuration is not limited to vocabulary only but touches on morphology as well as on syntax. There is a possibility that in a certain cultural structure certain morphemes come to the foreground while others retreat to the background; even new morphemes could be introduced. The syntax as the expression of the flow of thought and feeling in one way or another reflects the change of cultural logic, style and atmosphere. Still a lot of research work has to be done in this field. Coming back to our problem of the modernization of the language of Indonesia and Malaysia, attention should be focused on the dialectical interplay between the change of culture and the change of language which runs parallel to it. In an earlier period of cultural contact it was European languages which introduced modern, progressive, social and cultural concepts to the Indonesians and Malaysians. Most of the modern Indonesians and Malaysians received their education in Dutch and English. The introduction of the vernacular language as the national or official language and as medium of modern cultural life represents a later stage of the modernization process.

The modernization of the languages 6.

27

CONVERGING TENDENCIES IN THE ARISING PROGRESSIVE WORLD SOCIETY AND CULTURE AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES FOR THE EMERGING NATIONAL LANGUAGES

In the beginning I compared the rise of various Asian and African languages as vehicles for modern culture with the rise of the various national languages of Europe during and after the Renaissance, replacing Latin. A s in Europe the rise of modern culture with its scientific, technological, commercial, industrial and political revolution went together with a shift from the use of Latin to the use of the vernacular, also in the Asian countries the cultural modernization process goes together with the growth of a native national language expressing the rising tide of nationalism which is also an epiphenomenon of the rise of modern culture. Looking backward to this shift in Europe as well as in Asia and Africa, I think we have reason to regret it. As I said before, it is the first time in history that through the universality of scientific, technological and economic logic and through a worldwide system of transportation and communication a real universal industrial civilization is emerging in the world. And it is clear that this mondial culture would be better served by one or a small number of languages than by a multitude of languages. But there is nothing that can be done, no matter how much we regret the compartmentalization of the world into so many language areas. It seems that the growth of the universal state and culture must first go through the phase of rigid particularization of nationalism. But once we realize that modern culture, oriented toward science, economics and technology, is a universal culture based on the universal logic of identity and efficiency, we have at least some guidance in our efforts for the modernization of our languages. Modern science, technology and economics is to a very high degree a closed system in which the concepts, and thus also the terms, are interrelated, even dovetail with each other, enabling a smooth movement of words in the scientific or economic formula, comparable to the system of wheels in a machine. Thus, as in the commercial and industrial sector of economic life standardization of measurement, products and tools are of paramount importance for an efficient global production and exchange of products, so a standardization of modern terminology through the whole world would tremendously facilitate the exchange of ideas, research, products and goods so necessary for the further growth of science,

28

The modernization of the languages

technology and economics. Modern European languages are already to a very high degree a unity, since the essential scientific, economic, technological, and to a certain extent also the other modern terms expressing the same modern concepts, in most cases use words based on the same Greco-Latin words. In the development of the new modern languages of Asia and Africa, thus also of the Indonesian and Malaysian language which followed a parallel course of vigorous anti-Western nationalism, there was and is a tendency to avoid international words. In the coining of Indonesian modern terms during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia, for example, the preference in the determination of Indonesian modern terms was as follows: first to look for an existing Indonesian word; if there was no adequate Indonesian word for that concept a search should be made in the various local languages. If there was also no fitting word in local languages either, an attempt would be made to find an Asian word. The internationally used terms came last. Fortunately in the deliberations at that time this rule was never applied literally. But on the whole there were three tendencies discernible: a preference for Sanskrit words from the side of the Javanese whose culture has been deeply influenced by India, for Arabic words from Muslim side and for international words mostly based on Greco-Latin from the modernized younger groups. On the assumption that science, technology and economics are based on universal concepts and that the world has become more and more a unity because of the modern system of transportation and communication, the most logical and efficient decision in the determination of modern terms should, of course, be the choice of international words, mostly based on Greco-Latin. In the context of the controversy of East and West during the last century, however, this decision is not a pleasant one for many Asians and Africans. But viewed from a long range, closer cooperation in the modern world for scientific, economic and technological progress and other common interests, it is the best decision. There is very little that Sanskrit and the Arabic language can contribute to twentieth century scientific, technological terminology.4 Even India and the Arabic countries themselves have to learn modern scientific and technological concepts from Europe and America. What is, for example, the advantage of using the Arabic word zarrah for atom in the Indonesian and Malaysian language, if everybody very soon knows the word atom? In another context, why, for example,

The modernization of the languages

29

change in the Indonesian language the word autonomi into swatantra when autonomi has for decades been known in Indonesia, while tentera itself already has another meaning in the Indonesian language: the army. There is also the not-imaginary danger for countries like Indonesia and Malaysia that this Indonesian or Malaysian modern use of Arabic and Sanskrit words would differ entirely from their use in India and the Arabic countries themselves. The preference for words of an international character, on the other hand, will to a very high degree decrease the language barriers, i.e., communication between scholars, businessmen, etc., will become easier, which of course will promote the exchange of ideas and goods between the nations in the long run for a genuine international cooperation and organization in a worldwide progressive society and culture. The coordination of terms for the modern language in the twentieth century would be a rewarding task for an organization as UNESCO. I would like, however, to indicate clearly that with this statement, I am not suggesting that we in any case must prefer international terms. As a person who has participated actively in the coining of Indonesian modern terminology during and after the war, I realize that there are so many factors which must be taken into account. There is first of all the very vague borderline between terminology and daily vocabulary. In the case where a term is at the same time a much-used word in daily life, it is logical that the existing native word would have preference. But when there is no native word, the international term should be preferred. To take an Indonesian example, I do not agree that in the Indonesian language a new word should have been coined for tourism, tourist, namely, pariwisata, wisatawan, while the word turis is widely known in Indonesia, apart from the fact that this newly coined Indonesian word is much too long. Another case is the term for the names of elements in chemistry. Since these terms are related to the formulas in chemistry, uniformity must be attempted at as far as possible. It is clear that, after all, the coining of every term is a concrete decision and very often quite different factors must be taken into consideration. Thus my suggestion to give preference to international words must be considered only as a guiding principle. The problem of grammar and especially of syntax is more difficult and subtle. We know that, in one way or another, there is a relationship between our thinking and the rules of grammar. The change of value orientation of the Asian and African cultures from a religious and

30

The modernization of the languages

aesthetic oriented culture toward a culture oriented to science, economics and technology, with its own logic, concepts and reality, unavoidably has its consequences in the rules of grammar. The formation of abstract and rational words, related to modern thoughts and concepts, would greatly be enhanced, Byzantinism and feudal verbiage would decrease, etc. It is clear that these changes will go together with the development of the various phases of the modernization process. 7.

STAGES OF LANGUAGE MODERNIZATION IN THE ASIAN COUNTRIES

Before closing this chapter I would like to discuss the various stages of development of language modernization in the countries of Asia. There are countries, like Japan, Turkey and Indonesia, in which the modernization process of the languages has advanced to such a stage that education from primary school to university and the entire administration of the country are conducted in the native national language. In Japan, which has the most advanced scientific and industrial cultural life of the countries of Asia, modern thinking with the use of the modern Japanese language has produced scientific, technological and economic progress comparable to that of the advanced countries of Europe and America. The Japanese language is as mature a language as any European language. Although the Indonesian language has made tremendous progress during the last three decades, and although it is already used in all aspects of modern cultural life, it must be said that full maturity has not yet been reached. Not many books have been written and published in the language, so that modern Indonesian intellectuals still have to depend largely on foreign writings and publications. Other languages have already moved very far in the direction of modernization. But for one reason or another a modern Western language in various fields of scientific and technological development is still used. I think in this context of the languages of India. I have the impression that, for example, the Philippino language is not growing fast enough because of the too-important place which the English language has occupied in modern life in the Philippines. It might be that in marking the various stages of the modernization process of the languages in Asia we easily can use Rostow's (1961) well-known phases of economic growth. Japan would then be characterized as a mature modern Asian language. Others are preparing for the take off, while still others are already on the way to full maturity.

CHAPTER II

The rise of the Indonesian and Malaysian language

1.

THE COMMON ORIGIN OF INDONESIAN AND MALAYSIAN

The most remarkable fact in the context of the Malay-Polynesian or Austronesian language family is the development of Indonesian and Malaysian5 which are basically the same language into one of the modern languages of the twentieth century. It is the national and official language of Indonesia, of Malaysia and of Brunei. It is also the national language of Singapore, but here it shares its position as an official language with English, Chinese and Tamil. If we consider that the same language is also used in South Thailand and in some areas of the Southern Philippines we can assume that it is spoken by about 140,000,000 people in Southeast Asia, i.e., it is the sixth largest language in the world. From the multitude of Malay-Polynesian languages, Indonesian/ Malaysian is the only one which has become a modern language, used not only in administration, law, commerce, etc., but also in teaching from primary school to university. As mentioned above, Indonesian and Malaysian are basically the same language, which was before 1928 called simply Malay. How is it possible that Malay, although not the largest or culturally even the most important language of the Malay-Polynesian group, has become so influential in the twentieth century? It is today the mother tongue of only about fifteen million people in the whole of Southeast Asia, whereas Javanese in Central and East Java is spoken by about fifty million people. Even the Sundanese language in West Java has twenty million speakers. The dominant position of Malay in the southern part of Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, is the result of a long process which has its basis in geographical, historical, social and cultural factors.

32

The rise of the language

Indonesia and Malaysia stretch out over an area, in terms of Europe, as far as from Ireland to the Caspian Sea or, in terms of America, from Los Angeles to Boston. This large area is, moreover, divided by the sea into thousands of islands; the larger islands are divided by high mountain ranges into hundreds of isolated districts. During thousands of years hundreds of languages and dialects have become established. Almost all of them belong to the Indonesian/Malaysian branch of the greater Austronesian or Malay-Polynesian language group. The differences between these hundreds of speech communities are so large that one can call them with good reason separate languages and dialects. Precisely because the extensive area of Indonesia and Malaysia is fragmented into hundreds of geographical, cultural and, most important, linguistic units, there has been from time immemorial a need for a single common language which could be understood not only by the natives of the archipelago but also by the constant waves of foreigners attracted by celebrated riches. Of course, at times when the archipelago was dominated politically and/or culturally by a foreign power, there was a prevailing tendency for the language of that foreign power to become known to some segment of the population, i.e., Sanskrit in the Hindu period, Arabic in the age of Islam, Dutch and English under colonialism and Japanese under the Japanese occupation. Yet because the structure of the foreign languages differed markedly from that of the languages of Indonesia and Malaysia and because they were comprehensible only to a small stratum of society, there was always a second lingua franca alongside the intrusive language in use by the native peoples of Southeast Asia. Ancient Chinese chronicles appear to give evidence precisely of this. At the beginning of the Christian era, Chinese travellers coming to Indonesia found a sort of Indonesian lingua franca in the archipelago, which they called Kw'enlun (Kroon, 1931, pp. 109-118). Although various native languages in Southeast Asia were called Kw'enlun (for example, by Itsing who said that Sriwijaya was a great center of learning, where translations were made from the native language into Chinese), there is no doubt that the Kw'enlun of the early travellers was an old form of Malay. We know little about Kw'enlun; all our knowledge derives from allusions of travellers. We arrive on more solid ground with the first discoveries of Malay or Malay-like inscriptions from Kedukan Bukit (683), Talang Tuwo (684), Kota Kapur (686) and Karang Brahi (686),

The rise of the language

33

Gandasuli (832), Bogor (942) (Coedes, 1930; Casparis, 1950; Kroon, 1931, pp. 79 ff.). From a much later date is the inscription of Pagarruyung (1356).6 Although there still remain uncertainties about the details of these inscriptions, it is a common opinion that they are all closely related to Malay. It is a great pity that no manuscript is available from this time: material of the early form of Malay is thus limited to the few lines of these inscriptions. Since these are from the era of the great kingdom of Sriwijaya, it is fair to conclude that the Malay language already played an important role as lingua franca and official language of the time. Itsing's description also indicates that the language was instrumental, along with Sanskrit, in political and religious life at this date. Although the various inscriptions already give an indication of the great spread of Malay far beyond the area of Malay proper, it is not until the arrival of the Europeans that we really acquire a good idea not only of the spread of Malay but also of its status among the other Indonesian languages. Pigafetta, who accompanied Magellan on his first voyage around the world, compiled the first glossary of Malay while the ships were harbored at Tidore in 1521 (1800-1801, p. 243). This glossary is of great significance as it clearly shows that although Malay originated in Western Indonesia, it has by that time been disseminated to the easternmost parts of the archipelago. Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a Dutch navigator who sailed to Indonesia some sixty years later, wrote (1614) that Malay was not merely widely known but was also considered the most prestigious of the languages of the Orient and that he who did not understand it was in somewhat the same position as Dutchmen of the period who did not understand French. Islam, following in the wake of the sailors and traders, made use of Malay. The same comprehensive and sophisticated Islamic religious Malay literature of the sixteenth and especially of the seventeenth centuries bears witness to the role of Malay in the spread of Islam. There is even evidence that the use of Malay was not limited to Southeast Asia but had even spread to the centers of commerce in India and South China. It is still a problem how to account for the fact that Raniri, the great Islamic theologian and writer who was born and brought up in India, had such a good command of Malay on his arrival in Aceh in 1637, without accepting the fact that at that time Malay must have been a much used language in Gujarat (Voorhoeve, 1955, p. 7). In the sixteenth century the princes of the Moluccas used Malay

34

The rise of the language

when communicating with the King of Portugal. And, at the same time, when St. Francis Xavier was fighting Islam in the Moluccas, he wrote his expositions of the Christian faith in Malay in order to attract the native inhabitants into embracing Christianity. As he himself said: it is the language everyone understand (Drewes, 1948). It is clear that the rise of the Malay language as the lingua franca in this part of Southeast Asia was determined in good measure by the favored location of the Malay speakers on both sides of the Straits of Malacca, the most important sea route for communication between East Asia and West Asia and Europe, between the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. From this area the Malays have swarmed over the seas of Southeast Asia as immigrants and traders, bringing their language to Borneo, Celebes, the South Philippines and the Moluccas. Not less important than the Malays themselves as spreaders of the Malay language were the foreigners, who in continuous flow came to the harbors in the Straits of Malacca as traders and travellers because of the strategic position of the Straits in commerce in Southeast Asia and as transit harbors between India, Arabia and Europe in the West, China, and the whole Pacific area in the East. From the time of Sriwijaya until our time the Straits of Malacca have always been an important center of commerce, where traders from East and West as well as from the Malay Archipelago have met and exchanged products. Moreover, the Straits of Malacca have been for centuries the center of political and maritime powers: Sriwijaya, Malacca and Aceh. This central position in trade, seafare and political power gave the local language its role as the language of commerce and communication in Southeast Asia. Another factor might be the character of the Malay language itself, which, in comparison to Javanese, is relatively easy to learn. In Malay there are no social dialects as there are in Javanese, where different words are used to express the same idea depending on the age, rank and social position of the person to whom they are addressed. A foreigner wanting to learn Javanese would, therefore, have in reality to learn more than one language, plus Javanese culture. In addition to this advantage, Malay was also easily simplified into a low or bazaar Malay with foreigners.

The rise of the language 2.

35

T H E DEVELOPMENT OF MALAY IN INDONESIA DURING THE D U T C H COLONIAL RULE

After 1600 the Dutch East India Company started operations in Indonesia. Although the Company was primarily a trading organization, from the beginning it made attempts to propagate Christianity in Indonesia, as the Portuguese had done before them. For this purpose they set up, among other things, a number of schools, with the results that, from the beginning of the seventeenth century onward, the Company was faced with the problem of what language should be used for the native inhabitants in the new schools and churches. Efforts to introduce Dutch presented so many difficulties, and the local languages and dialects were so numerous, that the Company was forced to use Malay because it was understood by the majority of Indonesians in the archipelago. One can get a good idea of how slow and difficult the growth of Malay as an ecclesiastical language was, however, when one realizes that the New Testament in Malay could not be published until 1731 and the Old Testament not until 1733 (Brugmans, 1938, p. 22.).T As the role of the Dutch became increasingly strong and pervasive, so did that of their language. This was particularly true in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the Dutch East India Company's place was taken over by the Dutch colonial government. Under the influence of the Aufklärung and European liberalism, and also because of the need for trained officials for its own functioning, the colonial government gradually increased its efforts to give some education to the Indonesian people. The constitution of the Dutch colonial government (Regeerings Reglement 1854) states that the Governor General must take continuous care of the education of the population. The government must also build schools for the native population. In looking at primary school education in Indonesia, we must always remember that this education took place not only in the Malay language but also in the other larger native languages, such as Javanese, Sundanese, etc., depending on the mother tongue of the pupils. It was toward the middle of the century that the colonial government paid more attention to the education of the native population, not only by establishing primary schools but also by the creation of Teachers Training Colleges in Java and the other islands. In 1875 there were three Teachers Training Colleges in Java and five in the

36

The rise of the language

other islands. In 1893 the schools for native children were divided into two categories, one for the children of the better situated and the other for the common people. The duration of the education was five years for the second category and then later six or seven years for the first category. In the schools belonging to the first category, the Dutch language was also taught. For reason of expenses, a decision was taken in 1907 by Governor General Van Heutsz to create a three-year school for as many people as possible in the archipelago. The cost of this expansion would be charged to the local and regional communities. It was also around this time that schools for girls were established. In 1917 there were 991 schools of the second category in Java and 490 on the other islands; there were further 4,185 People's Schools in Java and 945 on the other islands. In 1914 the native schools of the first category were transformed into Dutch Native Schools, in which the medium of instruction was Dutch. The position of Malay was from the beginning rather strong, since the Dutch used it within the governmental apparatus and for communication with the Indonesian population. In this function it stood side by side with the Dutch language. Far from decreasing, the rivalry between Dutch and Malay became increasingly keen in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Dutch colonial government's policy on the question of the language of instruction in elementary and secondary schools was repeatedly changed in the nineteenth century, mainly because opinions on the importance of the two languages for instruction purposes constantly altered. Whereas Governor General Rochussen, after his tour of Java in 1850, suggested that Malay be made the ordinary medium of instruction on the grounds that it was the lingua franca of the entire 'Indian' archipelago and was used equally by all kinds of ethnic groups, Malays, Javanese, Chinese, Arabs, Buginese, Makassarese, Balinese and Dayaks in their ordinary social intercourse, the influence of Van der Chijs in the midnineteenth century was responsible for the progress made in disseminating knowledge of Dutch. He maintained that for this purpose it was not enough simply that Indonesians could attend European schools Tjut that special schools should be set up for the Indonesians alone where they could learn to speak Dutch. He also proposed to establish a system of secondary schools and of higher education, with this end in view. The turn of the century saw the rise of an ethical trend in colonial

The rise of the language

37

policy which tried to impart to the Indonesians some understanding of European culture by teaching them something of the knowledge and the methodology of Western civilization. When Mr. J. H. Abendanon became the Director of the Department of Education in 1900, he made strenuous efforts to foster and spread the use of Dutch throughout Indonesia. He was convinced that a knowledge of Dutch would be the shortest way for the Indonesian people to absorb Western culture. He instituted courses in Dutch in the People's Schools (providing six years of education) and later made Dutch a compulsory subject in these schools from the third to the sixth class. As a result Dutch became an extremely important subject of study in the Teachers Colleges. In 1908 Indonesians put forward their demands with regard to Dutch instruction for the first time. The initial Congress of the Budi Utomo, held that year in Jakarta, was the first general gathering of culturally conscious educated Indonesians. On that occasion the Congress demanded that standards for admission into Dutch schools be relaxed and that special schools be set up for those Indonesian children who wanted to carry their study of Dutch further than the elementary level. People were no longer satisfied that Dutch was merely one subject among a number of others; they realized that the scanty knowledge of Dutch thus acquired barred their children from continuing their education beyond a certain point. When Hazeu became Director of the Department of Education, Dutch began to be taught in the primary schools from the first class upwards. But it was only in 1914 that the demands of Budi Utomo were recognized and carried out fully. As has been said, in that year the Dutch Government established the Dutch-Native Schools which used Dutch over a seven-year period, so that children who had completed their studies there could carry on their education to the most advanced levels (Brugmans, 1938: Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs-Commissie, 1930-1931, p. 1109). I have analyzed the position of the Dutch language here at some length because throughout the first twenty-five years of the twentieth century, the Indonesians repeatedly demanded greater opportunities for their children to study it. As a consequence Dutch assumed an increasingly important position in Indonesian society. It became not merely a precondition for furthering one's Western education but also for getting highly paid jobs. Even apart from this, to be able to speak Dutch gradually became the mark of belonging to a new upper class in Indonesian society. Therefore, it was hardly surprising that every year

38

The rise of the language

thousands of parents struggled to get their children admitted to the Dutch-Native-Schools. But the number of places open was much smaller than the number of applicants, and a great number of these had to be turned down. People then tried to spread the language in other ways, for example, by courses instituted by the Algemeen Nederlandsch Verbond (General Dutch Association). There was also a group of Dutch educational experts who made great efforts to promote the •use of Dutch in Indonesia. The most important of these was Dr. C. J. Nieuwenhuis. It was with a conscious plan in mind that he fought for the pre-eminence of Dutch. He saw in it an instrument of both cultural and economic expansion. He declared emphatically: 'Any one with the courage to look calmly into the future and yet with concern enough for his children and grand-children and enough feeling for reality and justice not to dream of eternal domination, should not expect a permanent relationship between the mother country and the colony, but rather make every effort to ensure that some portion of what we have gained and created with so much toil and trouble be preserved for as long as possible. There is no more appropriate means to this end than the dissemination of our language. As with every communication of intellectual substance we shall have gained personal satisfaction for ourselves, and have laid the ground-work for an abiding unity of interests (Nieuwenhuis, 1925, p. 12). It was thus Dr. Nieuwenhuis' intention to make Dutch a unifying force in Indonesia. On this point, he said: 'If we want to promote Indonesian unity, let us begin first with the highest social classes, with the elite: and then, as the British did in India and the French in Annam, we must institute a language which can represent international culture fully as the general medium for social intercourse. In Indonesia this language will have to be Dutch' (1925, p. 12). Such a viewpoint inevitably made Dr. Nieuwenhuis reject Malay. His influence in spreading the use of Dutch remained until 1930. But in that year there appeared a strong reaction against him from two separate quarters. A great many Dutchmen were much dismayed and alarmed to see that steadily increasing numbers of Indonesians, admitted to secondary schools and the higher levels of education, were coming to occupy increasingly important government positions and keeping up a constant clamor for wider privileges. One finds Dr. J. W. Meyer Ranneft opposing Western education for Indonesians on the ground that, as he put it, he could not answer for the consequences,

The rise of the language

39

either economic or cultural (Volksraad, 1927-1928, pp. 306-308; Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs-Commissie, 1930). Meanwhile the problem of a national language for the Indonesian people gradually changed in character. Since 1908 the Indonesian intelligentsia had struggled to create organizations to stir the consciousness of the common people and encourage their development and progress. But they had slowly come to realize that they would never be able to create close ties with the body of people by using Dutch, which would never be understood by more than a tiny minority of Indonesians. On the premise that only by uniting the entire Indonesian people could they generate a force strong enough to challenge the colonial power, they began spontaneously to look for a language which could be understood by the great majority of the people. And so their attention was drawn to Malay which, as I have said before, had been the lingua franca throughout the Indonesian archipelago for centuries. The mass political parties, like the Sarekat Islam (Islamic Association), had been using Malay from the earliest days of their emergence in 1911. The Dutch government itself promoted the Malay language not only by the creation of Malay primary and later even secondary schools, but in 1908 it opened the publishing house Balai Pustaka, which provided the people who learned to read Malay with material on popular science and literature.8 Many newspapers in the Malay language were published by private enterprise. With the growing development of a consciousness of Indonesian nationality, and the rapid advances made by movements striving for Indonesian unity under the stimulus of this new consciousness, the use of Malay became increasingly widespread. But it was principally the youth movements which made the final decision in favor of Malay. At the First Congress of Indonesian Youth, held in 1926, Muhammad Yamin (1926) was still talking in Dutch about the future possibilities of Indonesian language and literature. But two years later, on October 28, 1928, at the Second Congress, held in Jakarta, the Youth of Indonesia took an oath to the effect that they belonged to one nation, the Indonesian nation, had one mother-country, Indonesia, and one language, the Indonesian language. It was at this Congress that the word Malay was replaced by Indonesian to describe the language (Alisjahbana, 1933). The decision not only settled the nomenclature of the language but also its place in Indonesian society. The competition between Dutch and Indonesian now came to an end. The decision,

40

The rise of the language

of course, also meant the acceptance of an obligation to develop the Indonesian language to a point where it could replace Dutch as a means of entry into modern world culture. It is in this light that we should regard the appearance, in 1933, of the magazine Pudjangga Baru (1933-1941; 1948-1953), edited by Amir Hamzah, Armijn Pane and S. Takdir Alisjahbana. Pudjangga Baru was a magazine designed to promote the Indonesian language and its literature. Various political and cultural leaders of Indonesia rallied to its support. It was the same group that took the initiative for holding the First Indonesian Language Congress in Surakarta in 1938. Notable among the resolutions passed by this Congress was its affirmation of the need to create an institute and a faculty for the study of Indonesian, to decide on technical terminology, to create a new orthography, and to codify a new grammar in accordance with the changes taking place in the structure of the language. In addition the Congress advanced a demand that Indonesian be made the language of the law and the medium of exchange in the various 'representative bodies'. But all these resolutions remained on paper. There was no organization behind the Congress which could put them into effect. As a result, the really important development of the Indonesian language came later, during the Japanese occupation.

3.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDONESIAN LANGUAGE DURING THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION

When the Japanese landed in Indonesia at the beginning of 1942, and shortly thereafter seized the governmental apparatus, one of their first acts was to abolish the use of Dutch, hitherto the official language and the only means of entry to the world of modern culture for the Indonesian intelligentsia. It was clear even then that the Japanese intended to replace Dutch by Japanese. Although Indonesians were taught Japanese in every department and school this goal could only have been reached over a period of years, however great might be Indonesian enthusiasm for studying the Japanese language. But the pressure of the military situation meant that the Japanese could not afford to wait for a peaceful development of this kind. Like all the people who had come to Indonesia before them, they were forced to make use of Indonesian as the most practical language for the time being. Indone-

The rise of the language

41

sian thus became not merely the language of the law and of official pronouncements but also of official correspondence between government departments and between the Government and the people. Likewise Indonesian was used in all schools from primary schools right up to the university level. It was a period in which a great deal that had never before been written or otherwise expressed in Indonesian had to be communicated in the language, with the result that it suddenly began to grow at a tremendous pace. One could call this flowering of Indonesian a forced growth, designed to enable it to exercise the functions of a mature modern language in the shortest possible time. Apart from this, however, the Japanese were so fully bent on mobilizing the total energies of the Indonesian people for the Greater East Asian War that they penetrated to the most remote villages, using Indonesian wherever they went. The language spread rapidly in all directions. And the Indonesians themselves experienced a new sensation such as they had never known before that time. As the fighting continued, and the number of Indonesian-speaking Indonesians rose, the feeling of mutual solidarity grew ever deeper and stronger. The Indonesian language became a symbol of Indonesian unity. It became clear to the Japanese that they could no longer arrest its development. They would have to provide a means by which the Indonesians could perfect and amplify their language. On October 20, 1942, they inaugurated a Commission on the Indonesian Language. Its task was to decide on modern terminology, to compose a normative grammar and to advise on the words used in ordinary parlance by the Indonesian people (Alisjahbana, 1946). A Language Office was established, headed by S. Takdir Alisjahbana. By the end of the occupation, 7,000 new terms had been decided on; most related to teaching in the secondary schools. We will come back on the work of the Commission on the Indonesian Language in Chapter 4. When the Indonesian revolution broke out after the Declaration of Independence on the 17th of August 1945, the Constitution stipulated that Indonesian would be the official language. This was really only an abstract confirmation of what had long been effective practice. Furthermore, when the Dutch Government tried to establish the Federal States of East Indonesia and Pasundan after the Second World War, it had no choice in the matter: the two Federal States could not avoid accepting Indonesian as their official language. When the Federal

42

The rise of the language

States were reintegrated into the Union in 1950, Indonesian automatically became the official language of the state, used in all government departments and on all official occasions. Meanwhile the work of constructing a modern scientific and technical vocabulary was carried on without a break. On June 18, 1947, a new Language Commission (The Working Committee on the Indonesian Language) under S. Takdir Alisjahbana was set up and was able to establish approximately another 5,000 new terms (Alisjahbana, 1947). After the Transfer of Sovereignty, the work was carried further by a larger committee on terminology, which in 1952 became a part of the Linguistic and Cultural Institute of the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in the University of Indonesia, under Dr. Prijana. The new terms were published in the journals Medan Bahasa and Bahasa dan Budaja and later also in separate books: in the Medical Dictionary, Chemical Dictionary, Dictionary of Law, Dictionary of Education, etc. It is possible to say now that the basis of modern Indonesian terminology has been laid. It is clear, however, that not all of the terms decided on have been accepted and are used in the living language. It is now up to the language-users, in school and society, to mould and decide on the terminology further in practice. Together with the development of the Indonesian language went a strong, conscious literary movement, first heralded by the Balai Pustaka and the youth magazine Jong Sumatra after the First World War, later after 1933 by the group around the magazine Pudjangga Baru. A new generation arose after the Second World War, which called itself the generation of 1945, i.e., of Indonesian revolution.9 The struggle against the Sukarno regime around 1966 went hand in hand with the arousal of the generation of 1966.

4.

T H E DEVELOPMENT OF MALAY IN MALAYSIA, SINGAPORE AND BRUNEI

The development of the Malay language in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei follows quite different lines, and the problems faced by these three states are also quite different from those faced by Indonesia. In a certain sense we can say that Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore belong to the area proper of Malay, where the Malay language was and is the mother tongue of the native population. But since the position of

The rise of the language

43

Malay and problems faced by it are different in these three areas, it is best to discuss them separately. The area which is called Malaysia today, consists of three separate parts: Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah. Malaya or Persekutuan Tanah Melayu for the last three centuries has been considered as the country of the Malay proper, i.e., the orang Melayu, who speak bahasa Melayu. The development of the Malay language, however, came rather late due to the educational policy of the British Colonial Government. An important factor is that English is a more important world language than Dutch A salient characteristic of English colonization compared to that of the Dutch was that a great deal of Chinese and Indian laborers were imported to Malaysia to work on British rubber estates and in tin mines. The native Malays were left relatively untouched under their own rulers with their political, religious, economic and social institutions intact. The fact that during the last decades the Malays have formed the largest minority group in Malaysia has made the language problem even more complicated. Education in the Malay communities before English interference was, as in Indonesia, of a religious character. The Malay language was not especially taught, and, yet, as the well-known Malay writer Abdullah bin A. Kadir (1796-1854) wrote in the nineteenth century, it was unheard of for the Malays to learn their language, since they considered themselves as knowing their own language. Malay secular education started in the areas which were called the Straits Settlements, which included at that time Singapore, Malacca and Penang. It was Sir Stanford Raffles who first expressed a desire to establish Malay schools after he discovered that reading and teaching was concentrated around the reading of the Koran in Arabic (Chelliah, 1960, p. 13). The first Malay school was established in 1821 in Penang. In 1856 two Malay schools were started in Singapore, and between 1858 and 1863 nine Malay schools were opened in Malacca. These efforts were those of the missionaries. The two Malay schools in Singapore in 1856, however, were supported by the Government. It was not earlier than 1867 that the Government of the Straits Settlements showed real interest in Malay education by 'building and staffing vernacular schools where Malay boys should be taught to read their own language both in Arabic and Roman characters' (Straits Settlement Annual Department Report, 1910, p. 740). Schools for Malay

44

The rise of the language

girls were established in 1855. The development of Malay schools in the Federated Malay States (Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang) was lagging behind that of the Straits Settlements. Still further behind were the Unfederated Malay States (Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Johor) with the exception of Johor because of its proximity to Singapore. The first school in Kedah dated from 1897, in Kelantan from 1903 and in Trengganu from 1915. The appointment of an Inspector of Schools enabled the Government of the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States to coordinate their school systems, in contrast to the Unfederated States which were left alone with their educational problems. A great turning point in education in the Malay language was the appointment of an Assistant Director in charge of Malay Vernacular Education in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States, under the stimulus of Malay rulers who realized that they had 'to equip their subjects to hold their own against the educated Indian and the vigorous intellect and energy of the Chinese {Straits Settlements Annual Departmental Report, 1930, pp. 723-732). The number of Malay schools in 1916 in the Straits Settlements was 191 with an enrollment of 12,934, in the Federated Malay States 365 with an enrollment of 18,034 and in the Unfederated Malay States 137 with an enrollment of 3,096 (Straits Settlements Annual Report, 1916). The content of education was elementary: reading and writing, a bit of arithmetic and geography. The policy seemed to be that too much education would change the life and thought of the Malays. The year 1916 was a decisive year for Malay education, since it was in that year that Mr. R. O. Winstedt, known for his knowledge of the Malay language and customs, was appointed Assistant Director of Education in charge of Malay Vernacular Education in the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States. After studying the development of vernacular and industrial education in Java and the Philippines, he proposed to develop Malay education 'on practical industrial lines'. The duration of the school was, however, still four years. From the time that Malay schools were established, there was, of course, always the problem of how to acquire the necessary teachers. With the increase of schools and pupils, these problems became more urgent, especially in the twenties when the Malays became more school-minded. Early efforts notwithstanding, it is safe to say that a definite program

The rise of the language

45

for training teachers for the increasing number of Malay primary schools began in 1876 when a Malay College was established in Singapore - but the school was closed again in 1896. The beginning of the twentieth century saw a new training college in Malacca (1900), in Matang, Perak (1913) and in Johor (1919). The training of teachers for girls' schools started not earlier than 1935, when a Training College for Women was established in Malacca. Conscious thinking about the Malay schools started with the establishment of the Malay Training College in Malacca, when Mr. R. J. Wilkinson, Acting Inspector of Schools, expressed his opinion that the teaching of arithmetic, geography and even of the Malay language itself was not up to the standard in the Malay schools: a change of textbooks and the more intelligent training of teachers were necessary to effect most important improvements. Mr. Van Ophuysen, the Inspector of Malay Schools in Sumatra, on his visit to Malay Schools in Penang and Province Wellesly, privately expressed very unfavorable opinions regarding the general efficiency of the Malay schools. The Malacca Teachers Training College offered for the first time a two-year course; all the other training colleges before had only one-year courses. Mr. R. J. Wilkinson did even more: he collected and published a large number of Malay classics, which became practically the only textbooks at the College and subsequently in the village schools. The Training School of Matang, which was established because of the enlightened attitude of Sultan Idris of Perak, later gave the basis for a centralized Teacher Training College, the Sultan Idris Teachers Training College in Tanjung Malim,10 which was opened in 1922. Through this centralized college, Mr. R. O. Winstedt (1917, p. 18) hoped to achieve uniformity, efficiency and economy in serving the need for Malay teachers for the Straits Settlements, the Federated Malay States and Unfederated Malay States. Compared to the earlier Teachers Training College, the Sultan Idris Teachers Training College was an advantage. It offered first of all, more courses; among others were introduced history, agriculture and basketry. In connection with the development of the Malay language most important was the creation of a Translation Bureau in 1923, attached to the Education Department in Kuala Lumpur, and the appointment of Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad, better known as Za'ba, as the first translator. The next year the Translation Bureau was made a branch of the Sultan Idris Training College in Tanjung Malim. The functions of the Bureau were:

46

The rise of the language

(a) Writing, translating and editing of educational publications and seeing them through press. (b) Writing, translating and editing of modern novels and seeing them through press. (c) Translations for other government departments. (d) The training of Probationer Translator. Although earlier efforts had been made for the publication of textbooks by private enterprise as well as the government, it is the first time that an organized effort was made to provide textbooks for the schools and reading materials for the pupils and the common public. The books published by the Translation Bureau can be distinguished into two groups. First, the Malay schools series, comprised of textbooks for the training college itself and for the Malay primary schools. Among the books published in this series are books on Malay grammar and composition, Malayan history, geography, arithmetic, agriculture, etc. The Malay Home Library Series consisted of translations of wellknown stories for children. The program of the Translation Bureau did not go as far as the Balai Pustaka in Indonesia, established by the Dutch Government in 1908. The efforts of Za'ba, after his visit to Indonesia in 1931, to improve the Bureau in the direction of the Balai Pustaka were not accepted by the Government. It is undeniable that the establishment of the Sultan Idris Teachers Training College was a landmark in the development of the Malay language in Malaysia. It has influenced the teaching of the Malay language considerably, not only in Malaya and Singapore but also in Serawak, Sabah and Brunei. A certain uniformity was achieved by the use of the books on the Malay language by Za'ba. Unfortunately the teaching of the Malay language generally remained a four-year primary course, and the highest school in the Malay language was the Teachers Training college with a three-year course. There were no efforts aimed at the creation of a Malay secondary school, as established by the Dutch before the Second World War in Indonesia. It is not true, however, that the Malay language did not play an important role in Malay, Singapore and the Borneo territories. It was still the lingua franca during the British colonial time for people who did not speak the same language. Furthermore, it was the second official language in these countries. All civil service officials were supposed to have a command of the language.

The rise of the language

47

The true emergence of the Malay language, however, was not until independence came in sight after the Second World War, in the fifties. It was nationalism which gave Malay a new status as the coming national language and official language of the country. In 1955, two years before Malaya gained independence, in the first general election in which the United Malay National Organization, the Malayan Chinese Association and the Malayan Indian Congress worked closely together, the proposal of Malay as the national and official language was already put forward and accepted. The following year witnessed the creation of an educational committee,11 led by the Minister of Education Tun (at that time Dato') Abdul Razak, which in the formulation of the objective of the national system of education clearly stated 'the intention to make Malay the National language of the country'. To this end the language should be taught in all primary and secondary schools. For this purpose a Language Institute should be created, which, in addition to the training of teachers of the Malay language, should conduct research into the Malay language and its teaching. The learning of the language should be encouraged. The Roman script should be used for the national language, while the Arabic script should be taught to Moslem pupils. It was also this committee which proposed the establishment of a language and cultural institution, in the line of the Balai Pustaka in Indonesia. In 1959 the newly created institution, called Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, acquired the status of a corporation under the Ministry of Education. Its tasks are: 1. To develop and enrich the national language; 2. To promote literary talents, especially in the national language; 3. To print or publish or assist the printing or publication of books, magazines, pamphlets and other forms of literature in the national language as well as in the other languages; 4. To compile and publish a national language dictionary.12 The Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka had published by the end of 1966 a total of 475 titles; most are books for the primary and secondary schools and general reading material for a wider public. Important also is the coining of a modern Malay terminology. At the beginning of 1967 about 70,000 terms had been coined in the Malay language in connection with government, agriculture, engineering, economics, commerce, telecommunication, linguistics, medicine, etc.

48

The rise of the

language

A comprehensive dictionary of the Malay language (Iskandar, 1970) was published in 1970. The Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is also the center for the National Language Campaign, to encourage people to use the national language in their daily lives. In the first Malayan Constitution of 1957, the position of the Malay language was clearly formulated: the national language shall be the Malay language. It was the National Language Act of 1967 which made the national language the sole official language of the country. For Serawak and Sabah in North Borneo, which in 1963 became parts of Malaysia, the position of the Malay language is comparable to that in the constitution of Malaya in 1967. Both states were to decide in 1973 whether the Malay language would become the official language. On the occasion of its tenth anniversary on September 16, 1973, Sabah proclaimed the Malay language as its official language, while Serawak decided to postpone this until 1975, because of a lack of qualified teachers, etc.

5.

THE MOVEMENT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

After the discussion of the position of Malay in the policy of the British Colonial Government and the policy of the independent Malayan and Malaysian Government, it is interesting to follow the development of the language in the hands of its supporters and writers. The Malay language came very early under the influence of modern culture. It was with Abdullah that the Malay language consciously accepted Western influence, and thus modern Malay language and literature have started. Abdullah had close contacts with Europeans through his work and the teaching of Malay. His description of the events of his time was quite different from that of chronicles and stories of the old Malay literature. But he did not have any followers. The thinking on the Malay language and the development of the Malay literature came to a standstill for about three-quarters of a century. It started again after the establishment of the Sultan Idris Training College in Tanjung Malim, with its Translation Bureau, where Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad had a very important position. He wrote various books on Malay grammar and composition, which are still widely used

The rise of the language

49

in Malaysia. Although the nrst Malay newspaper (Abidin bin Ahmad, 1941a) was published in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it was not very important for the development of modern Malay language and literature. The same can be said about the novels, poems and other earlier literary works which were published before the twenties. For this period mention must be made of the magazine Guru Melayu in Malaya from 1924 until 1941, which, being a magazine published by the teachers of the Malay schools, had a great interest in the growth of the Malay language and literature. The movement for the development of the Malay language and literature, however, was started with force after the Second World War in Singapore by the Angkatan Sasterawan 1950, i.e., the generation of writers of 1950, and the Lembaga Bahasa Melayu, i.e., the Malay Language Institute for the promotion of the Malay language, whose members consisted mainly of Malay teachers.13 Both these organizations reflected the rise of Malay nationalism after the war, which in one way or another was influenced by the language, the literary and political movements in Indonesia, before, during and after the war. At the Congress of the Indonesian Language in Medan in 1954, Malays of Malaya sent their representatives for the first time. It was during this time that Malay poetry and prose made real progress.14 Thinking on the problems of the Malay language also took a more serious turn, and, following the lead of the generation of 1950, several Congresses for the promotion of the Malay language and literature were held. The first Congress took place in Singapore on the 12th of April 1952, in which twenty Malay language organizations from Malaya and Singapore participated. A permanent Congress Committee came into being. A discussion on the merits of the Roman and Arabic scripts did not lead to the adoption of either. The second Congress was convened in Seremban by the same Committee on the 1st and 2nd of January 1954. This Congress adopted the Roman script as the official one, but the Arabic script was not abolished. Meanwhile, at the University of Malaya in Singapore, a Department of Malay Studies was established. This new institution was a great stimulus for the supporters of the Malay linguage. Moreover it was clear that the students of the Department would add a new force to the language struggle. The third Congress, held in 1956 in Singapore and Johor Baru, was more important than the previous ones, not only because of the participation of fifty-one organizations and the support

50

The rise of the language

of the Malayan and Singapore Government but also because of its decisions. A Permanent Congress Institution for Language and Literature was established, which, among others, had the task of organizing congresses from time to time, of bringing the decisions of the Congress into practice, of making contact with other language and cultural organizations. Besides the decisions to promote Malay literature, Malay songs and melodies, films, theaters and painting, the teaching of the Malay language in primary and secondary schools and in the university, and to expand the use of the language, the resolution that the Malay and the Indonesian language were one and the same language and that efforts should be made to arrive at a common spelling was of great importance. In this last decision the influence of the Persekutuan Bahasa Melayu Universiti Malaya, i.e., the Malay students' organization at the University of Malaya, which was established in 1955,15 was quite apparent. After the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, the Malay language remained the national language of Singapore, but as the official language it shares a position with English, Chinese and Tamil. The Malay language, however, is taught in all primary and secondary schools in Singapore. Since the Malay population is only about 15% of the total population, in fact the Malay language is the third language in importance in Singapore, after English and Chinese. Brunei, which is an independent sultanate under English protection, formulates clearly in its constitution of 1959 that the official language of the state shall be the Malay language and shall be in such script as may be provided by written law (Bakyr, 1968). The English language, however, may be used for all official purposes. In general it can be said that the development of the Malay language in Brunei, where the majority of the population speaks the Malay language, has followed the trends in Malaysia. The schools use mostly books from Malaysia. It has now established its own Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, which besides publishing books and magazines also coins modern terms.

CHAPTER III

Problems in the transformation of the Indonesian and Malaysian language

1.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF LINGUISTIC PROBLEMS WITH OTHER SPHERES OF CULTURE

After having given a survey of the history of the Indonesian and Malaysian language until its appearance as a developing modern language in our time, I would like to analyze the various problems the language is facing in becoming a full-fledged modern language comparable t o English, French, German, Japanese, etc. One of the characteristics of life in the developing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia during the last decades is the rapidity of the tempo of change combined with the immense dimensions of the problems that must be faced. Problems which were solved gradually over the centuries in the European countries must be settled here in a few decades. This phenomenon is surely a source of unlimited excitement and adventure for creative minds; it is clear, however, that in this atmosphere of overwhelming haste a calm consideration of possibilities, a thorough exploration and utilization of knowledge and experience from other parts of the world as well as deliberate planning are very difficult to attain. It is in this context that we must observe the process of modernization and standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language ill the last decades. In a short span of time the language has been transformed from a more or less unintegrated, pidginlike lingua franca into the official language, the language of modern life and culture in an area as large as the whole of Europa. This rapid growth of the Indonesian and Malaysian language is perhaps the most spectacular linguistic phenomenon of our age. A cursory glance at the many crucial decisions taken throughout the

52

Problems of transformation

development of the Indonesian and Malaysian language shows us that the various decisions were not all of the same character. The oath of the Indonesian youth at the Youth Congress in 1928, the establishment of the Committee for the Development of the Indonesian Language in 1942, the inclusion of the Indonesian language in the Indonesian constitution were all political decisions. The same can be said of the following decisions in Malaysia: the creation of the Abdul Razak Educational Committee in 1956, the establishment of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 1959, the inclusion of the Malay language in the Malaysian Constitution of 1957 and the National Language Act of 1967. Also the unification of the Indonesian and Malaysian orthography in 1972 can be considered as a political decision. The publication of the literary and cultural magazines in Indonesia and Malaysia represents the cultural aspect of the promotion of the Indonesian and Malaysian grammar and dictionary, as well as the coining of Indonesian and Malaysian scientific and technological terms, are in one way or another linguistic problems. In these various decisions we witness how the life of a language is inseparably intertwined with many other spheres of social and cultural life. No linguist can neglect these various complex interrelationships if he wants to influence the development of a language. By deeper investigation, however, we shall discover, that even the socalled purely linguistic problems are no isolated linguistic phenomena but very closely related to the total structure of the culture to which they belong. Take, for example, the coining of Indonesian and Malaysian scientific and technological terms, which enables Indonesians and Malaysians to develop modern science and technology in their own language. The choice of words for the new terms confronts the linguist with tremendous problems, ranging from the cultural structure of the modern world and the tendencies within the Indonesian and Malaysian culture to the detailed problems of the morphology of the Indonesian and Malaysian language. This close relationship between linguistic problems and cultural trends and tendencies in the creation of the Indonesian and Malaysian scientific and technological terminology manifested itself very clearly, among others ways, in the natural divisions of the members of the Indonesian community into three cultural groups, as will be expained later. Another example of the deep implication of language change to social and cultural change is the instability of modern Indonesian pronouns which reflects the still confused character of Indonesian

Problems of transformation

53

social relations. In a country which in some respects is still living in an atmosphere of feudalistically determined relations and in other respects in small communities based on kinship relationships, there exists an embarrassingly great variety of pronouns. The feudalistic atmophere in Indonesian social and cultural life derives from pre-colonial time when Indonesia was divided in a great number of small kingdoms. The court was the center of the feudalistic structure of these kingdoms, the king was surrounded by the noble élite, which had its representation in the other parts of the country. The Dutch colonial regime did not destroy this feudal structure but, on the contrary, attempted to incorporate it in the colonial structure. The kings and nobilities retained their feudal position toward the Indonesian community in the name of the colonial government. It was in the feudal atmosphere that even the Malay language had its Bahasa dalam, the language of the court. When the king was ill, people did not say raja sakit but raja gering; the same way people used other words than the usual ones to indicate that the king speaks, takes a bath, sleeps, etc. Also other pronouns must be used in addressing or indicating the king and other nobilities. The hierarchical structure of the language has developed the farthest in the Javanese language. The young people use another vocabulary than the older people, the same with the lower in status towards the higher. Without exaggeration it can be said that it is just because of its feudalistic structure that this language lost the struggle with the more democratic Malay language to become the official language of modern Indonesia. To learn the Javanese language means to learn nearly three languages. As under feudal conditions, there is a tendency in certain circles to use in the Indonesian language different pronouns with the social status of the individual, whether the speaker, the addressee, or the third person. In the sphere of the Indonesian village, which more or less still represents the old Indonesian community life, before the establishment of feudalism in the Indian period of Indonesian history, the relation between the members of the clan or village community is. determined by blood relationship. The whole village community is. divided in age groups, which are supposed to have the same position, in the kinship relationship. As might be expected in the small communities based on kinship relation, the words for I, you, he or she tend to be the same as those for the kinship relationships. Even now teachers in Indonesian primary and high schools are addressed as bapak (father) and ibu (mother).

54

Problems of transformation

Officials of high rank are also usually addressed as bapak. The kind of complication this intermingling of old and new uses of pronouns causes is illustrated by a widely told story about the late Indonesian Minister of Education, Mangunsarkoro, who once received a letter from his uncle with the address: Ananda Bapak Mangunsarkoro, which means: My son father Mangunsarkoro. In the confusing multiplicity of pronouns, manifesting the traditional social relations between people, there has been a tendency among the young generation who have studied Dutch or English to use some of the Dutch or English pronouns in their conversation, since the Dutch and English words better reflected the character of the newly arising Indonesian social structure and social attitudes than did the old Indonesian pronouns. Chinese and Arabic pronouns sometimes are also used in some Indonesian circles. Especially difficult is the problem of the pronoun of the second person; there was a need for a democratic, abstract pronoun, applicable to everyone. The introduction of anda, which can be used for anybody, like the English pronoun you, is an attempt in this direction. But up to the present anda is used mostly in advertisements, announcements, etc., but not in face-to-face conversations. It is clear that the transformation of a pre-modern language into a standardized modern language of the twentieth century is not first of all a linguistic problem but a cultural problem with all its scientific, economic, religious, aesthetic, political and solidarity aspects (c/. Alisjahbana, 1966). We even can say that the linguistic aspects are only an expression of the social and cultural reality, since everything that has been conceptualized, thought and experienced in a certain social group finds its crystallization in the language of that social group. And it is especially in the transformation of the value orientation of a culture which we call modernization, that the cultural aspect, 1.e., the aspect of cultural change as a result of a change in the value configuration, is of paramount importance.

2.

THE FAILURE OF MODERN LINGUISTICS

The difficulty in the modernization and standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language is that it takes place in a time when linguistics as the science of languages has more or less finished its task in

Problems of transformation

55

the construction, i.e., the unification and standardization, of the national languages of the modern states of Europe and America (Alisjahbana, 1965b, p. 17). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries linguistics has more or less focused its attention on the comparison and classification of languages, on the discovery of the formal aspects of their sound system, on the study of its logical structure, etc. The development of Indonesian and Malaysian language, however, asks from1 the linguist a broad view of the processes and concepts of social and cultural change, in order to enable him to formulate standards of usefulness, efficiency, exactness, simplicity of structure and other kinds of evaluative statements, which usually have no place in academic linguistics, for in contrast to the development of the older modern language such as English, French, etc., the development of the Indonesian and Malaysian language is a guided and planned development (c/. Alisjahbana, no date, b), for which conscious human initiative and decision, thus human evaluation, plays a very important role. The linguist who objectively collects and classifies linguistic data, by accepting the task of guiding and planning the development of a language, becomes a language engineer, who has the task of changing, of molding, of directing the growth of an existing language into an efficient, simple and exact language, able to function as the clear, unambiguous and rich means of communication and expression in the modern world. It is clear that modern linguistics as it is at present is not prepared for this broad, all-inclusive task. Its approach to the problems of language has been based too much on knowledge for knowledge's sake. And besides that, seldom has there been realized the close interrelationships between a language and the whole complicated fabric of social life, culture and thought. What the development of the young languages of Asia and Africa expects from linguistics, however, is an evaluative comparison of the adequacy of languages to fulfill their function in modern society and culture.

3.

THE PROBLEMS OF LANGUAGE ENGINEERING

I have already said that the development of the most advanced languages in the modern world is the result of the free interplay of psychological, social and cultural forces in the history of the nations. In this unguided development the irrational and accidental factors of

56

Problems of

transformation

human psychological, social and cultural processes played a very important role. New nations like Indonesia and Malaysia have the opportunity to develop and mold their languages more purposefully and systematically, while utilizing knowledge of linguistics and other related sciences. The creation of Esperanto or Volapuk, e.g., can to a certain extent suggest ideas and methods for the guidance of the development of these languages. Looked at from this standpoint the problem was and is how to arrive at useful rules and standards for the determination of the quality of a language as a means of expression and communication in the modern world. Is it possible to speak of one language being better than another, and, if so, what are the criteria of the superiority of one language over another? The immediate answer to this question is that we cannot say that one language is better than the other. Every language is a functional part of a culture, and in that capacity it is probably the best of the possibilities of that culture. We may say that the language and the culture have developed together functionally and to a certain extent in a dialectical interplay. So a judgment on a language in the last analysis cannot escape being part of the judgment on the total culture. Thus the formulation of the problem should be first: Is it adequate to speak of one culture being better than another, and, if so, what is the role of language in the determination of the higher quality of a culture? Let us take classical Greece as an example of a culture of high quality, of a productive and creative culture. Several efforts have been made to relate the high development of Greek culture to attributes of the Greek language, but as far as I know up to now the arguments have not been very convincing. Perhaps it is the failure of our science and not the objective lack of relationship which is to be blamed (Alisjahbana, 1965b, pp. 9-10). Our own period of history, however, gives us a better opportunity to make a comparison between languages because to a certain extent we are able to speak of a global modern culture, in which all modern languages take part. Modern science and technology, modem philosophy, even modern literature are to a very great extent everywhere the same. All languages of the modern world contribute and participate in their development, and translation from one language into another is a common phenomenon. There are, however, differences in the contribution of, let us say, the German-speaking nations in comparison with that of the English-speaking nations. It should be possible to relate

Problems of transformation

57

these differences of contribution to the differences in the grammatical structure and pattern of ideas and concepts as manifested in the vocabulary, in which German and English thought processes take place and find an adequate expression. I know I am here touching on a very complex problem which, since Wilhelm von Humboldt, has been attacked by many scholars. In our time it is especially Whorf (1965) who again attracted our attention to the correlation between language and culture while Weisgerber (1962) amidst the formalistic tendencies in linguistics attempts to emphasize the content of language as the most important fact of the language phenomenon. Up to now, however, a satisfactory formulation has not been found. It is clear that this is not the place for dealing with this very complex problem. It may be sufficient if I refer here only to the fact, that in my contribution to the development of Indonesian, and later in my lectures, in my grammar and other linguistic works on the Indonesian language, this concept of a certain interrelation and correlation between the formal and material structure of language and that of culture was always in the back of my mind. I have the feeling that the rather extensive efforts to explore this concept for the modernization of the Indonesian language were fruitful because they gave me a sense of direction, a frame of thought and ideas for the development of the Indonesian language during the most difficult period of its growth. It enabled me to find some guiding principles in the choice among the innumerable rivaling possibilities and in the creation of new norms for the emerging standard Indonesian as a modern language. 4.

THE INDONESIAN AND MALAYSIAN LANGUAGE AS A SYNTHESIS OF ELEMENTS OF MALAY-POLYNESIAN AND MODERN CULTURE

What are in concreto the problems of the modern Indonesian and Malaysian language as an expression of modern Indonesian and Malaysian thought and culture and as a means of communication in modern Indonesian and Malaysian society? We have seen that the Indonesian and Malaysian language is not an artificially created language like Esperanto and Volapuk. One way or another it is a continuation of the Malay language, which is one of the many Malay-Polynesian languages. Thus in the determination of the structure and characteristics of the Indonesian and Malaysian language first of all one must realize the

58

Problems of transformation

potentialities of the Malay language, which in turn is one of the MalayPolynesian or Austronesian languages. Every further grow of the moddern language must keep the fundamental potentialities as intact as possible because too reckless an experiment with them would estrange the language from the people and would tend to create confusion and hamper its growth. The changes in the structure or characteristics of the language, necessary through its development as the language of modern thought and culture, are not allowed to take place haphazardly, since the Indonesian and Malaysian language as a modern language must keep as far as possible its simple and coherent structure. During the war I spent much of my time studying the potentialities and characteristics of Indonesian languages, especially Malay. I tried to reformulate its syntax in order to understand its differences from the syntax of Western languages. I paid special attention to the morphological structure. On the basis of a comparative study of the affixes of various Indonesian languages I attempted to understand the relationship of Malay affixes with those of other Indonesian languages (c/. Alisjahbana, 1957). No less important was the fact that Indonesian was intended to be the medium of expression and communication of the Indonesian people in the modern world of the twentieth century. Thus I was also compelled to investigate the most salient characteristics of modern thought and culture in order to establish guiding principles for the modernization of Indonesian. In reflecting on modern culture I reached the following conclusions: (1) The modern world possesses a system of vocabulary on which modern thought and culture are based. (2) Compared to man in other epochs of history, modern man has various traits which are more or less related to the characteristics of modern thought and culture. I wish to formulate these traits as follows: (a) He considers himself a center of activity. With his efforts, he is able to change and use nature; he is even able to change his own destiny. This principle I want to call the activity principle. (b) Modern thought is comparatively much more rational and abstract than thought in any other culture in the past. This is not only a result of the importance of scientific, economic and technological thinking in the modem world, but it is also

Problems of transformation

59

a part of the very essence of modern society, in which rational and abstract relationships in many respects have replaced the concrete, emotional, face-to-face relations of man in earlier communities. A good example is the rationality and abstractness of modern codified law as compared to the customary law of traditional society. This I call the rational and abstract principle. (c) Related to the abstractness of modern society is also its sachlichkeit, its business acumen. (d) Another important characteristic of modern society is its egalitarianism, in contrast to feudalistic societies with their clear-cut social hierarchy. This principle, which I have called the egalitarian principle, is especially relevant in Indonesia because the most important language in the Archipelago namely, the Javanese language - is built on the principle of a society with a sophisticated hierarchy. The child must use a second vocabulary when speaking with his parents, as must the common man when he speaks to a person who is higher on the social scale. (3) Apart from these characteristics of modern thought and culture, I also considered very important the fact that never before has the unity of the world been as great as in our epoch. It is just because of this unity that we begin gradually to consider the plurality of languages in the modern world as a great handicap. It hampers communication and mutual understanding between individuals as well as nations, in every field of life. Translation, a time- and money-consuming business, has become more and more necessary. The rise of new nations with their own languages will to some extent neutralize the advantages of those means of communication and transportation created by modern science and technology. Consequently we must explore the possibilities of a rapprochement between the modern languages, in their spelling, their vocabulary, their syntax and morphology. A study of the common features of languages might be very useful. It will be only to the advantage of the new modern Indonesian and Malaysian language if it has some common elements - for instance, in vocabulary, affixes, abbreviations, etc. - with the most important modern languages of the world, without loosing its own characteristics as an Indonesian or Malaysian language. This advantage is, for example,

60

Problems of transformation very clear in the names of the elements and the formulas of chemistry. It is clear from the outset that even with meticulous planning the modernization of Indonesian or Malaysian should be quite different from the construction of a new artificial language. First of all, the language engineer or planner did or does not have the exclusive power or right to shape the modern language. Newspapers, radio, public meetings and the like were very important factors in establishing the structure and character of the new standard language. As in economic, educational, and other social and cultural fields, the development of the modern language can not wait until official planning institutions have executed their plans and programs.

5.

THE INDONESIAN AND MALAYSIAN PHONEMIC, SYLLABIC AND WORD STRUCTURE

Neither the phonemic system nor the spelling of the new standard Indonesian language gave much trouble, since the Malay taught earlier in the schools already had a more or less stable phonemic system and orthography. Some additions had to be made to this phonemic system to accommodate the many new terms derived from modern and other languages. The Committee of the Indonesian Language during the Japanese occupation, for example, had decided to accept the labiodental spirant / as a member of the phonemic system of the standard Indonesian language. Before this the / of a foreign word was usually pronounced in Malay and Indonesian as the bilabial explosive p. The Arabic words fikir, faidah became in the Indonesian language pikir, paedah. After the acceptance of /, the words negative, faculty and professor received the pronunciation and spelling: negatif, fakultas and profesor in Indonesian instead of negatip, pakultas and propesor. The general tendency was, however, to maintain the phonemic system of the Indonesian language as unchanged as possible. Even the Arabic words 'adat, 'umum, ra'yat, which for a long time had been accepted as Indonesian and which pronunciation was supposed to be close to that of the Arabic words, became assimilated to the Indonesian phonemic system; this fact had its official confirmation in the spelling of Soewandi in 1947 which excluded the use in these words of the special symbol ' used only for Arabic words. Since then these words

Problems

of transformation

61

are written as pure Indonesian words: adat, umum, rakyat. The new standard Indonesian/Malaysian phonemic system, as a continuation of the Malay language, is as follows (compare with the Van Ophuysen spelling, Suwandi spelling and Malaya spelling): Vowels Indonesian/ Malaysian spelling 1972 a e i o u e

Phonetic sign

Van Ophuysen Suwandi spelling spelling 1896 1947

/a/ /e/ /i/ /3/ /u/ /3/

a e i 0 oe e

Malaya spelling 1904

a e i o u e

a e i 0 u e

Consonants Indonesian-Malaysian Phonetic spelling 1972 sign b c d f g h j k kh 1 m n ng ny P r s sy t V

w y

/b/ /c/ Id/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /k/

n/ /m/ /n/ /t)/ /&/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /J/ /t/ /v/ /w/ /y/

Specification voiced voiceless (with no puff voiced voiceless voiced (aspiration) voiceless voiced voiceless (with no puff or glottal stop in final voiced voiceless nasal nasal nasal nasal voiceless (with no puff rolling or dental r voiceless voiceless voiceless (with no puff voiced voiced voiced

of breath)

of breath), position

of breath)

of breath)

62

Problems of transformation

Consonants Van Ophuysen spelling 1896

Suwandi spelling 1947

Malaya spelling 1904

b

b

tj d f

tj d f

b ch d f

g h

g h

g h

dj k ch 1 m n

dj k ch 1 m n

j k kh 1 m n

ng nj

ng nj

ng ny

P r s

P r s

P r s

sj t

sj t

sy t

v w

v w

j

j

-

w y

As has been said the / has been accepted as a new Indonesian phoneme, especially in words of Indo-European origin. In the IndonesianMalaysian spelling the v has also been accepted in words derived from modern European languages, such as in the word vak (Dutch origin). Quite different, for example, from the English, German or Dutch language, the Indonesian word structure consists of clearly discernible syllables with the vowel as center, so that, compared to some Indonesian regional languages, the Indonesian language has a very simple syllabic structure: V, VC, CV, CVC. From this syllabic structure scheme it is evident that the Indonesian language in its spelling and pronunciation does not have consonant clusters in the syllabic structure. A comparison of the Indonesian word with the English and Javanese word will elucidate this thesis. The Javanese word trima is

Problems of transformation

63

pronounced and written in Indonesian as terima. In the nasalized form the Javanese trima becomes nrima, while the Indonesian word becomes menerima. In this connection the English words class, stop, becomes kelas, setop in Indonesian. In its verbal form to classify, to stop, which in the Indonesian language is formed by the process of nasalization, the Indonesian word becomes mengelaskan, menyetop. Another characteristic of the Indonesian syllable is the impossibility to have an e pepat / a / at the end syllable of the word. This is clear in the following comparison between identical words in the Indonesian and Javanese language: catet, malem, seger in the Javanese language are pronounced and written as catat, malam, segar in the Indonesian language. Thus the Dutch words balsem, kamer, zalm became balsam, kamar, salam in Indonesian, while the English word towel has become tuala in the Malaysian language. On this basis it should be easy to adapt foreign words into the Indonesian language by adjusting them to the Indonesian phonemic, syllabic and word structure, as we see in the following examples. Dutch, English akte, act appel, apple cilinder, cylinder elite methode, method rationalisme, rationalism

Indonesian akta apal silindar elita metoda rasionalisma

Brandstetter (1910) and Dempwolff (1934-1938) assumed the possibility that prime Indonesian (Ur-Indonesisch) consists of one-syllabic words and that the present two- or three-syllabic Indonesian words derive from the reduplication, composition and affixation of the onesyllabic words. Mr. Sudarno (no date) has made an investigation about the syllabic structure of the Indonesian language, and has come to the conclusion that 75% of the Indonesian words consist of two syllables and 18% of three syllables: one-syllabic words are in the Indonesian language an exception (2%) mostly onomatopoeia or exclamations, while four- or more syllabic words are derivatives, compound words or loan words of other languages. I am of the opinion that in order to keep the Indonesian word structure and spelling as simple and regular as possible, the existing structure of the dominance of the two- and three-syllabic words without

64

Problems of transformation

consonant clusters must be maintained. Since modern loan words with consonant clusters have already three syllables or more, it could be decided that for these words an exception should be made, to prevent them becoming too long, which is in itself against the word structure of the Indonesian language. Therefore it is not necessary to make out of proclamation - peroklamasi, president - peresiden. These long words which in the Indonesian language are an exception will thus remain easily recognizable as Fremdkörper in the Indonesian language.

6.

THE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL TERMINOLOGY

In the determination of scientific and technical terminology, I have mentioned the three approaches of the Committee, as a result of the structure of Indonesian culture in general. One group has a preference for Sanskrit words and their derivatives, another group for Arabic or their derivatives, still another group for Greco-Latin or their derivatives. It is clear that my thought that the Indonesian language should be the medium of expression and communication of modern culture for the Indonesian makes me the protagonist of the group which has a preference for the adaptation of Greco-Latin words or their derivatives. If for modern scientific and technical terms Greco-Latin words were adapted to Indonesian pronunciation and orthography, it would be much easier for the Indonesian to learn other modern languages, and especially to read modern scientific works in other languages. On the background of this preference was also the thought that the Indian and Arabic languages themselves still have to develop their own modern scientific and technical terminology. It might even be that in many respects Indonesian is much more advanced than these languages in the process of modernization. The use of Sanskrit and Arabic words for modern ideas, regardless of their respective cultural athmospheres, would only accelerate the difficulties of and thus retard the modernization of Indonesian. Another broader thought underlying the preference for Greco-Latin words and their derivatives was that a unification of the technical and scientific terminologies of the modern languages of the world would undoubtedly contribute to easing scientific, commercial and cultural communication in the modern world.18

Problems of transformation 7.

65

THE PROBLEMS OF THE INDONESIAN GRAMMAR

I have spoken about the predominant need of a normative grammar because Malay, from which Indonesian stems, is spoken and written in different ways throughout the archipelago, and because a distinction in the use of the language between the educated younger generation and the older is already discernible. This normative grammar had to build up norms which should be considered the best possible synthesis between the potentialities of the Malay language as one of the MalayPolynesian languages and modern culture. It is in the determination of these norms - that is, in making a choice from among the various possibilities of the usage of the language - that the abovementioned (see section 4 of this chapter) guiding principles of modern culture were used. It is unavoidable that in the formulation of a normative grammar full attention must be given to the direction in which the Indonesian language is moving as part of a changing cultural pattern. Indonesian syntax is, as a consequence of the lack of declension and conjugation, dominated by word order and the accentuation of the sentence. The rule of Indonesian word order is that the following word determines the previous one. In conformity with this rule the predicate comes after the subject, the adjective after the substantive, etc.17 Even in a compound word, the second element determines the first. In the meaning of a sentence the word order can be changed by the accentuation of the sentence, in which case inversion can also take place. In the determination of the new Indonesian word order the problem is to what extent the influence of the more dynamic European languages can be accepted in the rather rigid system of Malay word order. Dutch, which has had a strong influence on the educated younger generation, shows more freedom in the placing of the adverb or adverbial phrase than does Indonesian. The sudden increase of the use of Indonesian by the Dutch-educated intellectuals tended to make the Indonesian sentences more varied and flexible in their word order. In morphology, the many prefixes, infixes and suffixes change a word from a substantive to a verb, from an adjective to a substantive, from an adjective to a verb, from a concrete substantive to an abstract substantive, from a simple verb into a causative, from the active form of a verb to the passive, etc. These and still other changes are effected by the use of the prefixes ber-, me-, di-, ke-, ter-, and se-\ the suffixes

66

Problems of transformation

-i, -kan, -an, -lah, -kah, -tah, -pun, -nda, -wan-, -man, and -wati; and the infixes: -el-, -er-, and ~em-. As in the vocabulary of everyday usage, the choice of affixes varied considerably in different parts of Indonesia according to the surrounding local languages. Even the grammar of the Malay language used in some schools during the Dutch time often showed different and contradictory use of some affixes. For instance, there is great confusion in the use of the prefixes ber- and me- for the forming of predicative words. From the first derive words denoting a situation of having (producing, working on) something: ber-sawah, having a rice field, ber-kembang, getting flowers, etc. Derivatives with the prefix memore clearly denote an act: me-nulis, to write, me-nangkap, to catch. The confusion in the use of both prefixes may be the result of the common origin and the different preferences of the various Indonesian languages. For example, in Minankabau people use the suffix ber- and in other parts of the Malay-speaking area the suffix me- with the word rotan, meaning to take rotan (rattan) in the jungle. On the other hand, me-rotan also means to beat with a rotan. In the Malay speaking area people say ayam ber-telur, chickens lay eggs, whereas in Jakarta people say ayam me-nelor. Ber-nyanyi and me-nyanyi (to sing) are both used. Also the use of the suffixes -i and -kan creates problems. In some areas people use me-nama-kan, whereas in other areas menama-i is used, for giving a name to a person (nama means name). There is also ambiguity in the use of the suffix -an in words like timbang-an, saring-an, derivatives of timbang (to weigh) and saring (to filter). The derivatives with the suffix -an mean both the instrument to weigh and to filter as well as the result of the act of weighing and filtering. These examples and still many other usages of the affixes raise the question of a réévaluation of the functions of the affixes in the context of the new normative Indonesian grammar.

CHAPTER IV

The expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

1.

THE EXPANSION AND MODERNIZATION OF THE INDONESIAN VOCABULARY DURING THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION

In the following discussion of the modernization process of the language I shall focus my attention on the modernization of the Indonesian language, not only because the Indonesian language covers a larger area and is more advanced compared to the Malaysian language but also because of my greater knowledge and experience with the Indonesian language. The most decisive period for the transformation of the Indonesian language was, as has been said, the capitulation of the Dutch to the Japanese army at the beginning of 1942. Dutch, the official language of the Netherlands colonial government and of modern cultural life in Indonesia, was suddenly forbidden. It was clear from the beginning that the Japanese conquerors intended to replace Dutch with their own language, even gradually to make Japanese the only recognized language in the country, as they had done in Korea and Formosa before the war. In contrast to the Dutch who tried to limit the number of Indonesians who knew the Dutch language, the Japanese, directly after their arrival made the most strenuous efforts to spread knowledge of' their language as quickly and as widely as possible. In every school and in every office they started courses in Japanese with examinations at regular intervals; persons who had taken the courses even for a couple of weeks, moreover, were already encouraged to teach other groups of Indonesians. The exigencies of the war, however, did not permit Japanese authorities to wait for their efforts to bear fruit; they were forced to follow the simplest and most practical way, namely, to employ the Indonesian

68

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

language, which for centuries had been the lingua franca of the whole of the archipelago, to urge the Indonesians to support them in the war for the creation of the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. For the Indonesians who were aware of the Japanese purpose, the exigencies of the war situation and the vacuum created by the banning of Dutch before Japanese could be learned created a ready opportunity for strengthening the position of Indonesian as the national language. The most urgent problem at that time was the language of the newly promulgated Japanese laws and pronouncements, the language of the radio and the press, of official correspondence, and last but not least of the schools. On the very first day after their arrival in Indonesia the Japanese army promulgated its laws and other pronouncements in Indonesian. When the schools were reopened a few weeks later there was no possibility other than to use Indonesian as the medium of instruction; Japanese, however, became a very important subject. Since in some primary schools and in all junior and senior high schools the medium of instruction had been Dutch and there were thus no textbooks available in Indonesian for the subjects taught in the junior and senior high schools, and since most of the Indonesian teachers of these schools did not have even an adequate command of Indonesian, this sudden change created complete chaos in the Indonesian school system. A committee for the translation of textbooks for junior and senior high schools was appointed, but very soon this committee discovered that it was not easy to find Indonesians who were able to translate books from a foreign language - at that time mostly from Dutch - into Indonesian. Furthermore those who had a command of both Dutch and Indonesian faced the difficult problem that Indonesian equivalents often did not exist for Dutch technical and scientific terms. Thus at first each teacher coined his own terms. The same difficulties appeared, of course, in the various government and private offices. There was not only a need for a clear and stable system of terminology in the field of law; but for nearly every commodity, profession, tool, instrument, procedure - too many to sum up - a uniform term was necessary. This problem of a uniform terminology was not merely a question of determining an adequate equivalent of modern terms. Very often it was difficult to arrive at a common usage of native Indonesian words derived from the various dialects or languages, for example, the names of plants, birds, etc.

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary 2.

69

T H E INDONESIAN LANGUAGE COMMITTEE

The increasing complaints about language confusion in the schools and government and private offices created great tension and a feeling of insecurity in the country; the need for a competent committee which was able to make decisions and give guiding principles for the many language problems became greater and greater. Since the solution of these problems would also increase the efficiency of the Japanese war administration in Indonesia, and their efforts to influence the Indonesians for war purposes, the Japanese occupation authorities finally established a committee for the promotion of the Indonesian language, the Komisi Bahasa Indonesia, on October the 20th 1942. That the committee was established on the highest level is evident by the following composition: Chairman: Mr. Mori Vice Chairman: Mr. Ichiki and Mr. Kagami Secretary: Mr. R. Soewandi (Administrative) Mr. S. Takdir Alisjahbana (Linguistic) Members: Mr. Abbas St. Pamoentjak n.s., Mr. Amir Sjarifoedin, Mr. Armijn Pane, Dr. Aulia, Mr. St. P. Boestami, Prof. Dr. P. A. Hoessein Djajadiningrat, Drs. M. Hatta, Mr. S. Mangoensarkoro, Mr. Minami, Mr. K. St. Pamoentjak, Dr. R. Ng. Poerbatjaraka, Mr. R. P. Prawiradinata, Dr. R . Prijono, Mr. H. A. Salim, Mr. Sanoesi Pane, Ir. S. Tjokronolo, Mr. R. Soedjono, Ir. R. Soekarno, Mr. R. M. Soemanang, Mr. M. Soetardjo, Prof. Uehara. Later the following members were added to this committee: Mr. Moh. Halil, Mr. R. Soenario, Mr. Johannes, Ir. Sakirman, Dr. Soetarman, Drs. Adam Bachtiar, Mr. Soetan Sanif, Mr. Adiwidjaja, Miss E. Djajadiningrat. The task of this committee was to provide the Indonesian language with an adequate, uniform technical and scientific terminology, to examine the words of daily usage and to write a modern normative grammar.18 To lend the committee high prestige, no less a person than the Head of the Department of Education, Mr. Mori, was its chairman, while its membership included not only the most prominent Indonesian writers, linguistic and cultural leaders, but also political celebrities such as Sukarno and Hatta. Prof. Dr. Hoesein Djajadiningrat was the chairman of the section on Indonesian grammar and Mr. Hatta himself

70

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

was for many years personally active as chairman of the section in charge of the scientific and technical terminology. Mr. S. Magunsarkoro, who later became Minister of Education after Indonesian independence, was the chairman of the section for the selection of words in daily usage. An office for the Indonesian language was established for the preparation and administration of the work of the committee, headed by Mr. S. Takdir Alisjahbana. Among the permanent staff were H. Agus Salim, Mr. Subadio Sastrosatomo, Miss Ida Nasution, Miss Mirjam Mangoendiningrat, Mr. Moh. Halil.

3.

T H E COINING OF THE TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC TERMINOLOGY

The section for the determination of technical and scientific terminology was, of course, the most important and urgent; especially urgent •was the determination of technical and scientific terms for use in the schools. This task was concrete and limited in scope. Several persons already engaged in translating Dutch textbooks were able to provide the committee with lists of Dutch terms and some tentative Indonesian equivalents. To complete these lists the committee asked the teachers who taught the various subjects in the schools to submit lists of terms they had used during the initial months after the schools had been reopened. In this way the committee had at its disposal several lists of the terms of, e.g., botany as they were provisionally used in schools. The task of the staff of the secretary at the language office was to compare the various Indonesian terms, to subject them to severe criticism and to try to collect other relevant information from additional sources. As a rule the staff then made a choice between the various terms in the lists but occasionally introduced a new word which it considered more satisfactory. The new lists of terms arrived at through this process were sent to the teachers who were teaching botany in Jakarta. About a week thereafter the language office invited them to a meeting for a preliminary decision on these terms with others who, by their profession or for other reasons, were considered competent in botany. The group attending this first session was called the subsection of botany, consisting of persons with the same subject of study or interest. The decision of this meeting was mimeographed and sent to the members of the section on terminology for a second deci-

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

71

sion at a higher level. The section on terminology had to decide on all technical and scientific terms and therefore consisted of members from different branches of learning and from different occupations. The words decided upon in a given subsection were studied and coordinated with the terms decided upon in other subsections, for instance, in that of zoology, agriculture and so on. After a certain number of lists dealing with different subjects had been decided upon in this section, the secretary would arrange a plenary meeting of the committee, at which the terms were formally confirmed. The first set of terms arrived at in this way was published by the Japanese military authorities in the official Government Gazette and thus acquired the official sanction of the Japanese government. However, as time went on, the interest of the Japanese members of the committee gradually decreased and the Japanese authorities never again felt the necessity of publishing the decisions of the Committee in the official magazine. On the other hand, this loss of interest on the part of the Japanese members of the committee and the Japanese authorities gave some of the Indonesian members, especially the Indonesian officials of the language office, more and more freedom to develop their own initiative and policies. We can say that, amidst the strenuous efforts of the Japanese army to Nipponize and involve the whole Indonesian population in their war efforts, the staff of the language office and some of the members of the committee together formed a consciously nationalistic group, fully aware that their efforts to promote the modernization of the Indonesian language were essential contributions to the development of Indonesian nationalism which would also influence other aspects of Indonesian aspirations and thought. As time went on, the language office became a small center of literary, cultural and political activities, secretly opposing the Japanese efforts to create a new literary and artistic atmosphere guided and directed at supporting their war purposes. In the daily meetings of the sections and subsections, which were now attended only by Indonesian members, the daily news and events were very often commented upon and ridiculed in the context of Japanese war policy; frequently secret news about the war was exchanged among the individuals attending the meeting. In 1943 these extra-linguistic activities increased and in January 1944 two officials of the language office were arrested by the Japanese authorities because of political activities. This was the intellectual atmosphere in which multiple problems of the Indonesian lan-

72

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

guage during the Japanese occupation were considered. During the first session the committee discussed and decided upon the principles for the determination of the new terms. These official principles bore the earmark of the Japanese occupation, for the Japanese made every effort to influence the course of events in favor of its warfare. In the determination of the technical and scientific terms, the committee was supposed first to search for Indonesian words; if there were no Indonesian words available, then it was to try to find words in one of the regional languages of the archipelago, such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau. If these efforts were also unsuccessful, then it might look for words in other Asian languages. Words from European languages were to be considered only if all efforts in the above-mentioned languages had failed. It goes without saying that in practice only the first and the second of these official principles the requirement to search first of all for Indonesian words - was ever applied seriously. The third principle was only a slogan, while international words which are mostly European words were very often preferred. In coining the new Indonesian technical and scientific terminology from existing Indonesian words, the problem faced was how to distinguish between the daily and the technical or scientific usage of the particular Indonesian words. Since in daily usage the meaning of the words is not precise, is ambiguous, the process of determining new terms was very often simply a redistribution of meanings among a group of existing Indonesian words. I will clarify this with an example. In the Indonesian language there exist two words for root, namely urat and akar. The word urat, however, was also used for vein, muscle, tendon. It is clear that in order to arrive at a good system of terms, the word urat had to be limited to one meaning, and different words had to be found for the other meanings. The decision made in this case was to assign the term akar to root, urat to tendon, a Javanese word otot to muscle and pembuluh to vein. The redistribution of words for animal and plant names is very complicated. In an area which is as large as the U.S.A. and where some two hundred and fifty languages are spoken, there exist many names for the same animals and plants; sometimes the same word is used in several areas for different animals or plants. An official of the government fruit experimental garden in Pasarminggu near Jakarta told me of a case that made such a deep impression that I shall never

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

73

forget it. In the region of the experimental garden the grapefruit family is called jeruk manis, which means sweet citrus. One day the experimental garden had an order for more than one thousand plants of jeruk manis from an orchardist in South Sumatra, where jeruk manis denotes a kind of tangerine, a citrus nobilis. You can imagine how angry the Sumatran orchardist was when after five years he discovered that he had planted grapefruit, which nobody in his area liked, and that after all his work he would have to replant his orchard. Another way of coining new terms is through building up new Indonesian compound words or new Indonesian derivative words with the assistance of existing affixes. Examples of the first are found in botany: anak daun for the Dutch word blaadje, denoting a leaf which is part of a compound leaf. While the Dutch word means 'small leaf', the Indonesian equivalent means 'child of a leaf'. The word 'child' is here used in analogy with such compound words like anak uang, child of money, for interest, anak kalimat, child of a sentence, for phrase, etc. For compound leaf, compound flower, is used daun majemuk, kembang majemuk, analogous to kalimat majemuk, compound sentence, a word which already existed in the Indonesian language. Many terms, denoting abstract ideas, such as nationality, citizenship, velocity, fertilization, digestion, sensation, came into being through the combined utilization of the Indonesian prefix ke- and the suffix -an, or the prefix pe- and the suffix -an; ke-bangsa-an (bangsa - people, race, nation) for nationality, ke-warganegara-an (warganegara - members of state or citizen) for citizenship, ke-cepat-an (cepat - speed) for velocity, pem-buah-an (buah - fruit) for fertilization or fecundation, pen-cerna-an (cerna - digest) for digestion, peng-indera-an (indera sense organ) for sensation. It is interesting to note how the suffix -man or -wan borrowed from Sanskrit and originally found only in archaisms such as sastera-wan, a person versed in the sastera, i.e., holy literature, harta-wan, a person owning harta, i.e., money and properties, a man of property, budi-man, a person with enlightenment or wisdom, an intellectual, suddenly became valuable for the creation of new words for various occupations; the word warta-wan (warta news) was coined for journalist, seni-man (seni - art) for artist, modalwan (modal - capital) for capitalist and negara-wan (negara - state) for statesman. Reduplication is sometimes used in the Indonesian language as a plural form. It is also used in combination with the suffix -an to denote

74

Expansion

and modernization

of the

vocabulary

a group of the same variety or sort. This form became productive in forming botanical terms denoting a certain family, comprising a plurality of genera: malvaceae becomes in the Indonesian language kapaskapasan, i.e., belonging to the cotton family, myrtaceae, jambu-jambuan, i.e., belonging to the jambu family. The problem of borrowing words from foreign languages was much more complicated. Since Indonesian culture has been influenced by Indian, Islamic and European cultures, words from these three cultural traditions competed with each other for acceptance in the Indonesian technical and scientific terminology. Very soon three more or less clearly marked preferences became manifest in the meetings of sections and subsections. If no Indonesian word or its derivative could be used, there would be for a particular meaning one group that wanted to introduce a Sanskrit word or its derivative, a second group an Arabic word or its derivative, while a third group would favor a word of Greco-Latin origin. Many compromises took place among these three different orientations. Since in the last analysis the majority of votes was decisive in the sections and subsections, the decision on a term very often depended on pure accident. Furthermore some branches of science, technology, profession, etc., lend themselves more easily to the use of Greco-Latin words, whereas for other branches Arabic and Sanskrit words are more easily used. For example, Greco-Latin words were accepted by all for the names of the elements in chemistry because of the conviction that the Indonesian language should use the same initials and formulas as the modern languages. Moreover we should not forget that there are different categories, even different levels, of terms. There are terms which coincide with words of daily usage, and there are those which are used only by the specialist. Indonesian physicians among themselves, for example, will use many Latin words or their derivatives, but even in the medical vocabulary there are many terms which are also used in daily life. It is especially in terms which coincide with daily words that Arabic and Sanskrit loan words, which for a long time have been accepted by the Indonesian language, have the greatest chance. The word used as the Indonesian equivalent for state, for example, is negara, derived from Sanskrit. The compound word warganegara was created for the concept of citizen; it literally means member of state. Once a word is accepted as a term in the Indonesian language, supposedly it can be used to make all the necessary combinations and derivatives.

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

75

Many of the new Indonesian terms concerning Indonesian national political life are derived from Sanskrit because the zenith of Indonesia as a political power is regarded as coinciding with the Hindu period of Indonesian history: pancasila are the five fundamentals of the Indonesian state, dwiwarna is the Indonesian flag, saptamarga are the seven pledges of the Indonesian army. Also in the arts the new Indonesian terminology uses many words of Sanskrit origin: kesusasteraan for literature, kebudayaan for culture, mencipta for to create, sutradara for movie director or play director, pujangga for writer or thinker, etc. In general we can say that Sanskrit words for a great number of Indonesians still have a certain emotional force, which enhances their selfconfidence and national pride. Many words in Malay are of Arabic origin because Malay more than any other language in the archipelago was the medium of the spread of Islam. The fact that nearly 80% of the population of Indonesia are Moslems helped to facilitate the introduction of additional Arabic words. The Indonesian word for science is ilmu, deriving from an Arabic word; the word for term is istilah, another Arabic word. Many other Arabic words were similarly introduced into the modern Indonesian language, like aljabar, almanak, nadir, etc., which have since been accepted internationally. In addition many words of Greek origin became Indonesian words through the adoption of Arabic words, as, e.g., filsafat for philosophy. It is interesting to see how new Indonesian affixes arose, and how new affixes were borrowed to be the equivalent of certain Greco-Latin affixes or other grammatical forms. For example, the word organic is adopted in Indonesian as organik, but instead of likewise accepting the word inorganik for inorganic, a combination was made from the word organik and the newly coined Indonesian prefix tak-, meaning not, to form takorganik. In the case of terms like materialism, spiritualism, nationalism, efforts have been made to substitute the prefix serba (Sanskrit sarwa) meaning 'all' for the Dutch suffix -isme, the English -ism, the German -ismus. The term materialism accordingly becomes serbazat and spiritualism serbaroh. In the latter we have a combination of serba, adapted from Sanskrit, and roh, meaning spirit, soul, adopted from Arabic. The prefix prae- or pre- in such words as prehistory is replaced in Indonesian by pra- the Sanskrit equivalent. In prasejarah, prehistory, we have a hybrid of a Sanskrit prefix with an Arabic loan word.

76

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

It goes without saying that in the creation of the new modern Indonesian vocabulary also many words from the dialects and regional languages such as Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, etc., are used. We have already mentioned how the Javanese word otot has become the Indonesian word for muscle. A special problem connected with the adoption of Sanskrit, Arabic, Greco-Latin and other loan words and affixes is the assimilation of the new words and affixes to the Indonesian phonemic system. We will come back on this problem in the chapter on the standardization of the Indonesian words. Efforts have been made to arrive at a formulation of certain principles in the transformation of the phonemes of Greco-Latin affixes for the Indonesian language, but toward the end of the war when the language committee was dissolved, it still had not succeeded in formulating efficient rules. Sanskrit and Arabic words have for a long time been accepted in the Indonesian language through Malay. But since most of the Malay words deriving from Sanskrit have also been accepted in Javanese, which especially in its high Javanese form has plenty of Sanskrit words, there is a tendency that the spelling and even the structure of the Indonesian and Javanese Sanskrit loan words become confused with each other: puteri (Indonesian spelling) — putri (Javanese spelling), perajurit (Indonesian spelling) - prajurit (Javanese spelling). Because of the fact that Islam is the living religion of more than 80% of the population many Arabic words have the tendency to remain unassimilated in the Indonesian phonemic system: Allah, Qur'an, Jum'at, etc., although the Indonesian spelling of 1947 opened the opportunity for a total assimilation of the Arabic words: pikir from fikir, adat from 'adat, majalah from majallah, etc. But especially modern words deriving from European languages created the most difficult problem in the modern Indonesian language. Many of the Latin words and their different derivations were already more or less integrated in the Indonesian language in a Dutch form; for instance, the word for quality and quantity in the Indonesian language were kwalitet and kwantitet deriving from the Dutch words kwaliteit and kwantiteit. The controversy which arose about the words university and faculty is interesting. There was a time when at the Gajah Mada University in Jogjakarta in Central Java the words universitit and fakultit were in use. The University of Indonesia in Jakarta, however, used the terms universitet and fakultet. The rivalry between the two universities, each claiming to be the most important in

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

77

the country, made a choice very difficult. But during the last few years, a third alternative has gained more and more ground, namely, universitas,19 which sounds better to the Indonesian ear than either universitet or universitit. This change also brings about the replacement of kwalitet, kwantitet, solidaritet by kwalitas, kwantitas, solidaritas, etc. A predominance of the Dutch pronunciation of Greco-Latin suffixes is discernible in the Indonesian words like rasionalisasi for the English rationalization, mosi for motion. Under the influence of the Dutch words analyse and these, in Indonesian are used analisa and tesa, but recently there has been a tendency to change toward analisis and tesis, thus approaching more closely English usage. The suffix -ist which is used in Dutch, English and German to form substantives, denoting a person with the characteristics of the stem word, is adopted in daily Indonesian not only in loan words such as sosialis, nasionalis, empiris, but also in derivatives from Indonesian words marhaenis (from the stem word marhaen - proletariat), partindis (a member of the Partindo party), etc. To a certain extent this affix -is from the European languages denoting a person is now competing with the affix -wan or -man from Sanskrit. 4.

THE VOCABULARY OF DAILY USAGE

The vocabulary of daily usage, which was the task of the third section of the Komisi Bahasa Indonesia, was an effort to establish and standardize the vocabulary. The Malay language, as the lingua franca of the greatest part of Southeast Asia for more than a millennium and as the source of Indonesian, has always been spoken with many local variations. There is a special Malay of Jakarta, influenced by Sundanese, Javanese and other languages; there is a Malay of the Moluccas; there is even a Malay of Central Java, spoken in Solo and Jogjakarta, etc. The many variations are very often strongly influenced by the local or surrounding languages in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. During the Dutch colonial period gradually two kinds of language developed, i.e., a low or popular Malay used in the market and in casual encounters, and a high Malay, which is the language of the school and the official circles. It is especially in school that a clear distinction must be made between the approved vocabulary in its approved spelling and pronunciation and the unapproved words. During the Dutch colonial period there was an offical list of 10,130 Malay

78

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

words, compiled by Ch. A. Van Ophuysen called Kitab Logat Melayu (The Book of Malay Words).20 All the words were also written in the official spelling. The schools had to limit themselves to these words in their official spelling and pronunciation, although sometimes these words, their spelling and pronunciation derivated from the daily usage. The words bisa (can, be able) and gampang (easy), for example, are not considered to belong to the official vocabulary, although they are used in daily conversation and even in the press. The teacher at school must reject these words and must regard them as mistakes in the works of his pupils. It is clear that at the time when Indonesian suddenly became the official language of the press, school, public meetings, correspondence between government offices, the business world, throughout the whole archipelago the many variations in vocabulary poured into daily usage. It was of course also the time that the language indeed expanded in words and concepts as never before. We may even say with justice, that it is just this abundant richness and variance in vocabulary, which was one of the characteristics of the transformation of the Malay language into the Indonesian language. The official Malay language, which was also called high Malay or school Malay, was not only rigid and to a great extent pedantic in the choice of its words but also in the use of affixes and in its syntaxis, so that this transformation can also be considered as a liberation and dynamization of the language. On the other hand, however, with this radical change the road is also opened for the other extreme: the Malay language as a widespread lingua franca with very little rules and norms becomes more dominant; the Indonesian language is, because of its sudden growth, more or less chaotic. This situation was especially accentuated by the fact that during the Dutch colonization the great majority of Indonesian journalists, political leaders and even teachers never had any formal training in Indonesian, so that everybody tended to use his local variety of Indonesian in the absence of a satisfactory standard language. In the further development of the Malay language two groups especially play a very important role. On the one side we find the journalists who in their slap-dash daily work did not have the time to meticulously consider their words. Very often they intentionally choose the popular vocabulary or form in order to reach as large a readership as possible, which in general had not learned the language adequately. The journalists were important in the development of the Malay lan-

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

79

guage and later of the Indonesian language because they are the ones who day after day present news, commentaries, opinions and advertisements to the people at large in the language. More or less of the same category are the political and other leaders who faced the mass in meetings, conferences and congresses and also had to use popular language in order to be understood. On the other side were the teachers who had to teach the language to their pupils in the most disciplined form. It is in this connection interesting to refer to the debate between the teachers and the journalists at the Congress of the Indonesian Language in Medan in 1954. The teachers reproached the journalists for spoiling the Indonesian language in newspapers and magazines by the use of unapproved words and especially through their neglect of the grammatical rules of the Malay language as taught in the schools. The journalists from their side claimed that through the daily spread of their publications in which they intensively experimented and created new forms and structures of the Indonesian language, they were the real builders and developers of the Indonesian language. In no respect did they want to subject themselves to the rigid and awkward rules of the language of the schoolmasters. Understanding and sympathizing with the teachers I could only comfort them with the words: 'It is not possible to force the journalist to accept the disciplined language of the school, since they are already independent factors in the growth of the Indonesian language. Their work is of a more spontaneous character, and it is not their fault that they have not learned the Indonesian language adequately in the colonial atmosphere. There is very little that the teachers can do to discipline the language of the present-time journalists, but on the other hand it is quite clear, that the teachers have the capacity and the authority to mold and guide the language of the next generation of journalists.' The task of the third section of the Komisi Bahasa Indonesia was to collect and register the countless words which were making their entry in the press, in meetings, in correspondence, etc., and to decide whether these words were to be accepted or rejected as a part of the growing standard Indonesian language. It goes without saying that among these new words many were of European origin or from other Asian languages. Especially many European words which through mass media and personal contact became widespread and accepted such as: akur (Dutch: accoord), oke (English: o.k.). It is obvious that the task

80

Expansion and modernization of the vocabulary

of the third section was very difficult: the efforts to regulate the vocabulary of daily usage was from the very start doomed to fail because the decisions taken had to be more or less arbitrary. If this section decided that a certain word was accepted as standard Indonesian, there was no guarantee that the school or the public would really use that word. In the dynamic condition of the Indonesian language at the period of its fastest growth, words sprang up overnight and disappeared sometimes even faster than they had come. The task of selecting words of daily usage for a standard Indonesian vocabulary is better suited to a lexicographer, who can calmly survey the variations of the vocabulary of a language in all its manifestations and is able to put them down in an extensive dictionary. In this connection very good work was done after the war by W. J. S. Poerwadarminta who provided the Indonesian language with an excellent dictionary (1953). It is a pity that after his death for a long time this work was not continued with the same seriousness and pushing power, so that Indonesian lexicography is indeed lagging behind the progress of the Indonesian language. More subtle and complex was the task of the second section which had the assignment of providing the language with a grammar. It is clear that in the more or less chaotic situation at that time, the grammar which was needed most of all was a normative one for school and general use. The central problem was how to arrive at principles that could be used for the determination of grammatical norms for standard Indonesian. A purely objective descriptive attitude toward a language in such a rapid transformation could not result in a coherent grammar. The contradictions and inconsistencies in the use of gramatical forms had somehow to be brought into a more or less coherent system. But an absolute adherence to descriptive objectivity, even if it could be achieved, would neglect the dynamic situation of the language as a reflection of the great transformation of Indonesian society and culture. The next chapter will elaborate on the problem of the writing of a normative grammar.

5.

THE EXPANSION AND MODERNIZATION OF THE MALAYSIAN LANGUAGE

As has been said in an earlier chapter, the expansion and modernization of the Malay language in Malaysia took place later and at a much slower pace than in Indonesia. It was already late in the fifties when

Expansion and. modernization of the vocabulary

81

the national movement for independence started to organize itself and that conscious efforts were made not only to determine the status of the language but also for its development and modernization. The Malay language in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei during the English colonial period has never been so standardized as the Malay language in Indonesian schools during the Dutch colonial rule, neither in its vocabulary, nor in its grammar. Also the spelling of the Malay language in these countries has never been so efficient and rational as the spelling in Indonesia. The pronunciation of the Malay language of Johor has always been different from the pronunciation of the Malay language in Kedah and other areas in the North. In the coining of the modern scientific and technological terminology in the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka we can say that the same problems have been encountered as in Indonesia, with this difference: that the Arabic and the English language have a stronger influence in Malaysia than in Indonesia in the determination of the modern terminology. Although the population of Indonesia consists of more than 80% Moslems, the much smaller Malay community in Malaysia, however, has a stronger affiliation to the Islam and the Arabic language. For example, where in Indonesia the Dutch loan word diproklamasikan is used for being proclaimed, in Malaysia for the same concept the Arabic loan word diishtiharkan is used. For administration in Malaysia the word pentadbiran is used derived from Arabic, while in Indonesia the compound word tatausaha, deriving from Sanskrit, is preferred. Another problem faced in the Malaysian language is that the English spelling deviates considerably from the spoken word. There is a tendency in the Malaysian language to prefer the spoken language above the written word, so that, for example, in Malaysian is written: steshen for station, while in Indonesian is used stasion or setasion. The English ton (1000 kg.) becomes in Malaysian tan, (in Indonesian ton), the English card becomes kad (in Indonesian kartu), television becomes talivishen (in Indonesian televisi), the English police becomes polis (in Indonesian polisi), the English agent is ejen (in Indonesian ageri). I am of the opinion that it is preferable to take the written word in the European language as basis of the modern vocabulary, since there is greater similarity in the written international vocabulary than in the spoken language as is specially exemplified by the English spelling.

CHAPTER

V

The writing of a normative grammar

1.

PRINCIPLES AND PURPOSES

Perhaps it would have been possible to construct a grammar of the Indonesian or Malaysian language from the standpoint of this language only, to create new categories in order to arrive at a grammar best adapted to the structure and other characteristics of the language. But had this been done, the Indonesian or Malaysian grammar would have been a very isolated one, understandable only within the framework of Indonesian, Malaysian or perhaps some other related languages. The other extreme standpoint would have been to begin with an absolute universal list of categories of human languages in the abstract and then to try to formulate the grammar of every language in terms of this abstract, absolute grammar. To a certain extent Ihe Latin grammar has functioned in this way for centuries; it has been used not only in describing Indo-Germanic languages but also those of other parts of the world. I have the impression that at present the science of language is still very far from a satisfactory uniform method of describing the grammars of the diverse languages of the world with the same basic principles and categories. In facing the problems of the establishment of a standard Indonesian language to be the medium of expression and communication in the modern world, my concern as grammarian was to write an Indonesian grammar which would describe the structure of the language with the use of (as much as can be considered proper) the categories and terms of the grammar of the modern languages. In this way Indonesian grammar would not lose all contact with that of modern languages; on the contrary, a certain bridge could be erected between them, facilitating the learning of these languages by the Indonesians and vice versa. But

84

The writing of a normative

grammar

since Indonesian has its own characteristics and categories, I had to pay special attention to them. I have spoken about the predominant need of a normative grammar because of the more or less chaotic situation of the rules of the Malay language as a lingua franca, from which Indonesian stems. It is spoken and written in different ways throughout the archipelago; a distinction in the use of the language between the educated younger generation and the older is already discernible. This normative grammar had to build up norms which should determine correct usage of the modern Indonesian language.

2.

MODERN LINGUISTICS AND NORMATIVE GRAMMAR

It must be said, however, that modern linguistics has shown very little interest in the problems of writing normative grammars, for it developed in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the modern European (and American) languages had already been unified and standardized. The unification and standardization of these languages took place in the long process of nation building after the Renaissance. For the regularization of the English language, for example, the eighteenth century was of great importance. 'Whereas fewer than fifty writings on grammar, rhetoric, criticism and linguistic theory have been listed for the first half of the eighteenth century, and still fewer for all the period before 1600, the publication in the period 1750-1800 exceeded two hundred titles. And most of these were concerned in whole or in part with colecisms, barbarisms, improprieties, and questions of precision in the use of English' (Leonard, 1962, p. 12). Regional and class dialects were also attacked as these differed from an assumed national and correct usage. It was through compulsory education that the standardized languages later spread thoughout the European countries. European and American linguistics have thus long been in a position to concentrate their attention on the analysis and description of foreign, exotic and primitive languages and on the dialects of their own languages, mostly in an effort to formulate the formal aspects of languages with a conscious or unconscious intention of applying electronic methods to the teaching of foreign languages or of perfecting the process of automatic translation. This is one of the reasons that modern linguistics has had

The writing of a normative grammar

85

very little impact on the teaching of modern languages for native speakers. My discussions with Prof. G. Gougenheim in Paris (1968) and Prof. E. M. Uhlenbeck in Leiden (1969) were very illuminating on this point. I asked Professor Gougenheim for a French grammar, written on the basis of modern linguistics and widely used for the primary and high school in France. He responded that the teaching of the French language to French pupils and students has a long tradition and is very little affected by the various trends of modern linguistics. He advised me to visit the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud with its Centre de Recherche et d'Études pour la Diffusion du Français, i.e., the diffusion of the French language to foreign peoples and countries. Professor Uhlenbeck acknowledged honestly that it was not yet possible to write a satisfying modern Dutch grammar on the basis of modern linguistics as he understood it. Traditional grammar still plays a dominant role in the teaching of Dutch in Dutch schools. The situation is not different in other modern countries. I have seen some experimental modern grammars for schools in the United States. There is a substantial renewal in phonology, but in other aspects great compromises have been made with traditional grammar. The concepts of subject, predicate, noun, verb, etc., are still widely used. The many criss-crossings of esoteric terms and old concepts tend to confuse rather than enlighten students. In the description of foreign, exotic and primitive languages, as well as in the description of dialects, which usually are small and static entities, the linguist has a rather easy task, since he can easily adopt the proposition that linguistics entities are nicely integrated and structured, i.e., that members of language communities use the same phonemes, the same morphemes, the same vocabulary, the same syntax, etc., in the same way. Thus he can with good conscience take any native speaker of the language as his informant. A very good recent example is Dr. Rufus S. Hendon's (1966) excellent work on the dialect of Ulu Muar Malay, for which Che 'Amit bin Simat served as linguistic informant. This preoccupation with small, isolated and static languages or dialects is also very clearly discernible in the work of Dutch scholars in Indonesia during the last half century. While many descriptions were made of the various local languages of Indonesia from the twenties until after World War II, there was very little written on the emerging

86

The writing of a normative grammar

national or official language, i.e., the Malay language, which was developing into the modern Indonesian language, the sole official language for the whole country. Indeed Dr. Fokker's (1950) effort to write a grammar of modern Indonesian failed, for in the unstable situation of the language at that time he could find no acceptable criteria by which to judge correct usage. Dr. Prijono, an Indonesian scholar educated in the Orientalist tradition of Leiden, had to acknowledge, at a Congress on the Indonesian language held at Medan in 1954, that it was not yet possible to write a grammar of modern Indonesian. How could such an acknowledgement be accepted at a time when the whole of Indonesian society, especially the schools, was crying out for a normative grammar that would standardize the use of the modern Indonesian language? It must be admitted that the history of modern Indonesian is an especially difficult case because it was one among about 250 languages all belonging to the same language group. The Malay language, as modern Indonesian was earlier called, was not even the largest or most important language in that group as has been described in Chapter 2. As the lingua franca for at least a thousand years in an area as large as the whole of Europe or the United States, its strength was in its adaptability, its 'lawlessness', i.e., everybody could express himself in that language with a minimum of vocabulary and a minimum knowledge of its rules of grammar. Thus Malay became known as the easiest language in the world to learn. It is clear that this 'ease', this 'lawlessness', which was a great advantage in the unsophisticated contacts between merchants and travellers in the bazaars and harbours, or between foreigners who happened to meet each other casually, would turn out to be a great disadvantage when the language became the national and official language of the country, the medium of instruction in schools, the language of law and official correspondence, etc. Thus the problem of paramount importance was how to change the more or less pidgin-like lingua franca into a stable, sophisticated national and official modern language, which would be the vehicle of modern Indonesian thought and culture. Standardized prescriptive rules had to be determined for use by the schools as well as by officials and the common people. It is clear that the same procedures of language description that had been used for small static languages or dialects could not be applied to the description of a fast-growing language like Indonesian, spread out over such a large area and influenced by various local languages as well as

The writing of a normative grammar

87

various foreign languages. Another way of thinking and another procedure had to be followed, especially attuned to the expected characteristics of the dynamic national language. Tht Indonesian grammar could not be only the result of an objective description of the spoken language. As has been said the spoken language varies widely; there are dialects of Jakarta, Medan, Minahasa, Solo, etc. The modern Indonesian grammar must be of another character. In a situation where rules are unstable and varying, it must determine rules. It must make a choice from among various existing rules or create new ones. Which of the various rules are better adjusted to the new task of the language as bearer of the new Indonesian thought and culture? 3.

THE AFFIXES AS CORE OF INDONESIAN GRAMMAR

It is clear that in the Indonesian language as an agglutinating language the various prefixes, suffixes and infixes play a very important role; we can almost say that the use of the affixes, i.e., the morphology of the Indonesian language, is the core of Indonesian grammar. In the morphology, the many prefixes, infixes and suffixes change a word from a substantvie to a verb, from an adjective to a substantive, from an adjective to a verb, from a concrete substantive to an abstract substantive, from a simple verb into a causative, from the active form of a verb to the passive form. These and still other changes are effected by the use of the prefixes ber-, me-, di-, ke-, ter- and se-; the suffixes -i, -kan, -an, -lah, -kah, -tah, -pun, -nda, -wan, -man and -wati; and the infixes -el-, -er- and -em-. It is, however, just in the use of the affixes that the greatest chaos exists in the Indonesian language as the lingua franca. In the language of the market, the harbor or the superficial and accidental encounter of people with a different mother tongue, the affixes are often neglected or misused. But even in more educated circles the use of the affixes is far from uniform. For instance, there is great confusion in the use of the prefixes ber- and me- for the forming of predicative words. From the prefix ber- derive words denoting a situation of having (producing, working on) something: ber-sawah, having a rice field, ber-kembang, getting flowers, etc. Derivatives with the prefix me- more clearly denote an act: me-nulis, to write, me-nangkap, to catch. The confusion in the use of both prefixes may be the result of their common origin

88

The writing of a normative grammar

and the different preferences of the many Indonesian languages."21 For example, in Minangkabau people use the suffix ber- and in other parts of the Malay-speaking area the suffix me- with the word rotan, meaning to take rotan (rattan) in the jungle. On the other hand, merotan also means to beat with a rotan. In the Malay-speaking area people say ayam ber-telur, chickens lay eggs, whereas in Jakarta people say ayam me-nelor. Ber-nyanyi and me-nyanyi are both used. Also the use of the suffixes -i and -kan creates problems. In its most simple function we can say that the suffix -i makes from the object a kind of location; the object is static: Ahmad melempari pohon itu dengan batu (Ahmad bombarded the tree with stones). The suffix -kan on the other hand represents the object as something in movement, thus dynamic: Ahmad melemparkan batu kepada pohon itu (Ahmad is throwing stones at the tree). In some areas people use me-nama-kan, whereas in other areas me-nama-i is used for giving a name to a person (nama is name). I think we have to consider that in the first case the person is changed from nameless to one with a name, and in the second case a name is given to the person. There is also ambiguity in the use of the suffix -an in words like timbang-an, saring-an derivatives of timbang (to weigh) and saring (to filter). The derivatives with the suffix -an mean both the instrument to weigh and to filter as well as the result of the act of weighing and filtering. These examples, and still many other uses of the affixes, raise the question of a réévaluation of the functions of the affixes in the context of the new normative and prescriptive Indonesian grammar.

4.

THE PROBLEMS OF THE DERIVATIONS OF THE LOAN WORDS

One of the difficult grammatical problems faced in borrowing words from a foreign language is the question of the grammatical form in which foreign words should be accepted: in the plural or singular, as a verb, an adjective, a substantive or in some other way. In the beginning the situation was very confused. For the word element, for example, two Arabic forms were used, namely unsur and anasir, one in the singular and the other in the plural in Arabic. Persons who used the Arabic plural anasir often used this word again in the Indonesian plural by duplicating it: anasir-anasir. The intellectual who can speak and write Dutch has the tendency to

The writing of a normative grammar

89

use Dutch words according to Dutch pronunciation and grammatical form. But once a word is also used by the common people, who do not know Dutch, a new development starts. Let me elucidate this with an example. After liberation, everybody spoke of the proklamasi kemerdekaan, the proclamation of independence. But in the sentence 'Indonesia proclaimed its independence on August 17, 1945', proclaimed is translated into Indonesian as mem-proklamir-kan because of the Dutch verb proclameren. It is clear that the acceptance of a word both as a verb and a substantive will make the Indonesian language needlessly complicated and difficult. The transition from proklamir to proklamasi will not be understandable in the Indonesian grammar, or the grammar must introduce new affixes. It should be enough to incorporate in the Indonesian language one of the two forms and treat it further in accordance with the rules of the morphology of Indonesian. Thus it is possible to accept the substantive proklamasi from the Dutch proclamatie. But if proklamasi is to be used as a verb according to the rules of the Indonesian language, the form to proclaim should be memproklamasi-kan. It is of course also possible to adapt the verb proklamir; the Indonesian substantive derived from it should then be proklamir-an. It is, however, more or less accepted that for the adaptation of a European word into Indonesian the substantive form should be preferred. More difficult is the problem of the adaptation of a group of European words, deriving from the same stem but through affixation representing a great variety of forms and meanings, such as ratio, rational, rationality, to rationalize, rationalization and rationalism. At present the word rasio is accepted as an Indonesian word. The same is true of rasionalisasi (from the Dutch rationalisatie); rationalism can be translated as serbarasio or adapted as rationalisma\ to rationalize is now merasionalisasi. For rational the common usage is rasionil (English rational) because of the influence of the Dutch pronunciation.22 Should rasio, rasionalisasi and rasionil be accepted as separate, isolated words or should new suffixes be introduced in the Indonesian grammar borrowed from Greco-Latin or modern languages in order that the relationship between these three words becomes understandable in Indonesian? The latter will have many consequences and would be advisable only if this introduction really has a chance less complicated by attempting to withdraw from Indonesian the form rasionil or rasional through replacing it by an Indonesian prefixation berasio, meaning

90

The writing of a normative grammar

having ratio. But this effort has until now not yet been successful. The word rasionil or rasional is already so popular that there is for the time being little chance that berasio will be able to replace it in the near future.

5.

SHIFT IN THE FREQUENCY OF THE USE OF AFFIXES AND THE ACCEPTANCE OF NEW AFFIXES THROUGH CULTURAL CHANGE

It is clear that in the social and cultural change which goes together with a change in the structure of thought, a shift occurs in the frequency of the use of the various affixes. Some affixes become less used since the thought expressed by it decreases in the context of the new culture, while other affixes are used more frequently. A comparison of the use of the prefixes ber- and me- in the classical work Hikayat Seri Rama of the nineteenth century and the Layar Terkembang, a recent novel of the thirties, revealed that the use of the prefix ber- which is less dynamic decreases, while the use of the prefix me- increases, since by using the latter the subject is more active and dynamic. This process, of course, goes together with the process of individualization and dynamization in the Indonesian culture under the influence of its contact with modern culture. I already mentioned that the use of the affixes pe-an and ke-an increases through the abundance of abstract concepts which poured into the Indonesian language through its modernization. In the last chapter I already referred to the use of several affixes from Greco-Latin and other European languages in loan words from these languages, such as -tas in kwalitas, universitas, solidaritas, -il (Dutch -eel) or -al (English) in intelektuil/intelektual, rasionil/rasional, universil/universal, -is as in nasionalis, sosialis. The latter suffix is even used to form new Indonesian words, indicating the attitude or ideology of a person, e.g., Sukarnois, Marhaenis, etc. Also in the syntax great changes are under way. A comparison of a piece of Malay literature written in the last century compared with a piece written in the last decade reveals not only a great change in the use of words but also in the word order, the structure and atmosphere of the sentences. In general it can be said that the modern Indonesian writer is much more free in the choice of words, in the structure of his sentences, while the division of the complex sentence into principal

The writing of a normative grammar

91

clauses with subordinate clauses is more regular and rational. This and other considerations show us that it is not possible to write at this phase of the development of the Indonesian language a comprehensive descriptive grammar because, if the grammar really wants to be objective and descriptive, it must describe the great number of crisscrossing variations which is an impossible job. What is highly needed is indeed a prescriptive grammar, which can be used to distinguish correct usage from incorrect usage in school, in the formulation of new laws, in official correspondence, etc. For this purpose, various factors must be taken into consideration in determining the rules of modern Indonesian.

6.

THE VARIOUS FACTORS FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE NORMATIVE MODERN GRAMMAR

First of all, the standardized modern language is not a new language, like Esperanto. It is in one way or another related to an existing language, i.e., Malay. Thus a knowledge of the essential characteristics of the Malay language is a necessary precondition. For this purpose a comparison of the existing more or less descriptive grammars of Riau Malay is useful. Besides a knowledge of the essential characteristics of the Malay language, a knowledge of the general characteristics of related languages in the Indonesian area is also necessary. Where ambiguity exists in the usage of the Malay language, the general or predominant rules in the other languages could be of great help in reaching a decision on a uniform rule. In the case of Indonesian, it is the general or predominant rules of the Western part of the Malay Polynesian language group that would be considered. A knowledge of the characteristics of Malay and other languages of the western Malay-Polynesian languages does not, however, suffice for the creation of a normative grammar, since modern Indonesian has still another very important characteristic, expressed by the adjective modern. Indonesian must be a modern language, expressing modern thought and culture, comparable to English, French, German, etc. A t this point, I think I cannot escape the obligation to explain again succinctly my concept of modern thought or modern culture. My basic assumption is that cultural phenomena are uniquely related to

92

The writing of a normative grammar

human behavior as a result of the special capacity of the human being to evaluate his world (which includes himself), in contrast to animal behavior, which is based on drives and instincts. The human values resulting from this evaluating capacity can be discerned in the theoretical value aiming at the identification of things and processes in nature, the economic value aiming at their utilization, the religious value aiming at the holy, the aesthetic value aiming at beauty, the power value aiming at power, and the solidarity value aiming at solidarity, i.e., love, friendship (c/. Alisjahbana, 1966). All these values are represented in every culture. There is no culture in which there is no knowledge of nature, and there is no culture in which the holy with its tremendum and fascinans does not play a role, even though the group officially rejects religion. The difference among the various cultures through history is not that there are cultures without one or more of the six basic values, but that the patterns, the configurations of the six evaluational processes, and thus also of values, are different. If we accept these processes as the main interdependent processes determining the system of values, and thus also the structure and type of culture, we can divide cultures into two types, namely, the progressive cultures, in which the theoretical and the economic evaluating capacities dominate, and the expressive cultures, in which the religious and aesthetic evaluating capacities dominate. Viewed from this standpoint, what we have called the modernization process in the countries of Asia is nothing other than the change of the overall configuration of the evaluating process of these cultures from expressive to progressive. Thus the same progressive process which during the last four centuries changed the expressive culture of the Middle Ages in Europe into modern culture has now cast the expressive Asian cultures into the throes of rapid social and cultural change or even of revolution. From this point of view, the description of Riau Malay, will not give us the vocabulary or the rules of grammar of modern Indonesian. We have to look for other criteria of modern Indonesian based on other research materials.

The writing of a normative grammar 7.

93

WHO ARE THE BEARERS OF THE MODERN INDONESIAN LANGUAGE?

The problem turns upon the question who are the bearers of the modern progressive Indonesian culture and thus also of the modern Indonesian language? It is the written language of these people that may be used as the basis for determining the rules of grammar of modern Indonesian. Thus the first task is to make a list of individuals who can be considered the best representatives of modern culture and thus the best users of the modern language. In my effort to write an Indonesian grammar, my criterion for a good bearer of Indonesian modern language is a person who can be considered as having a good command of the rules of the Malay language, in addition to a certain skill in the use of the language for modern subjects and topics: in other words, he must be an Indonesian intellectual who knows the Malay language and who has used the language regularly in the context of modern thought and culture. In Indonesia around the Second World War these intellectuals were H. A. Salim, Moh. Yamin, Sanusi Pane, Armijn Pane, Dajoh, Imam Supardi, Hatta, and others. Since the language has become the Indonesian language and is no longer called Malay, it is advisable to choose the intellectuals not only from the Malay-speaking groups but from the whole of Indonesia. It is a fact that the standardized language is always closer to the written language than to the everyday spoken language because the standardized language, as the official and cultural language, is more sophisticated, more polished and disciplined than the daily spoken language. Thus for an Indonesian grammar, I have selected written materials from about twenty Indonesian intellectuals. It is clear that another choice of materials is also possible. I have conducted computer studies on the usage of the Malay language in the Malaysian newspapers and magazines. It was my intention to do the same with the language of the Malaysian Parliament, the Malaysian radio and television and the textbooks of the Malaysian secondary schools. The purpose of this research was first of all to assess the frequency of usage of Malay words necessary for a certain standardization of vocabulary and for the writing of textbooks. A count of the usage of the Malay affixes was also made, with a view to a survey of the spread of their present usage. As we know the use of affixes is the most important and complex part of modern Indonesian grammar. Even this study of the language of a selected number of intellectuals

94

The writing of a normative grammar

or of the language of the Malaysian press, Parliament, radio, television and secondary schools will not result directly in a structured set of rules, since even these intellectuals as well as the press, the Parliament, etc., are not using the Malay language in a standardized way; compared to the great variations in local dialects, however, the differences in usage in this selected material are small and more manageable. In the process of formulating rules of grammar from the analyzed materials, the writer of the modern grammar still has to make various decisions in order to be able to formulate clear rules that will form the structured framework of the Indonesian or Malay language. In various cases the rules of the traditional Malay language could be accepted without modification, for Indonesian and modern Malay are indeed continuations of the Malay language. But since the language has been continuously under the influence of local languages and dialects as well as modern languages, such as English and Dutch, the investigated materials reveal differences in the use of affixes, in syntax as well as in word formation and word usage. It is the responsibility of the grammarian to choose as best as he can from among varying, often contradictory, possibilities in order to arrive at a balanced grammar, attuned to the requirements of modern thought and culture. On the one hand, if he leans too heavily on the traditional Malay language, his grammar will be merely a traditional Malay grammar, which not only has not been adjusted to modern needs but which also in one way or another will appear strange and awkward to non-Malay users of the language. If, on the other hand, he is too eager to accept influences from the other local languages, there is a big chance that he will not achieve a structured unity of the rules of grammar. If he is too liberal in accepting modern forms deriving from modern languages and modern thought, there is the possibility that the developing language will lose a great deal of its Malay or Malay-Polynesian character and be alienated not only from the Malay people but also from the other groups who have known the language as a lingua franca. In this case, again, it would be difficult to arrive at a new structured system of rules.

8.

T H E TASK OF THE GRAMMARIAN IS A CREATIVE ONE

Thus the task of the grammar writer is a very responsible, delicate and complex one. He has to take so many factors into consideration in his

The writing of a normative grammar

95

decision as he works towards a new equilibrium, among various, very often opposing tendencies at a time when traditional attitudes, ways of thinking and habits are gradually being replaced by new ones in the context of the great modernization process. The task must be to a certain extent a creative one. As the creation of a new modern constitution in the countries of Asia as a source of a new system of modern law determines the new social and cultural values and the new social and cultural behavior of the citizens of the new states of Asia, so the creation of a normative grammar determines the new rules of language behavior in the national and official sphere of the new states. Aside from a thorough command of the modern language at all levels of its use, the grammar writer must have a liberal mind, so that he is able to understand the multifarious tendencies, possibilities and tensions posed by the special situation of the rapid change of the language. At the same time he must also have an open eye for the fact that the abstractness, rationality, efficiency and dynamism of modern social and cultural behavior, thus also of language behavior, can be achieved only in the subjection of the new language to well-formulated old potentialities and the exigencies of the new realities. Before concluding, I would like to emphasize the importance of wellformulated and integrated rules and norms for the modern language, not only for its efficiency but also for its further development as one of the modern languages of the twentieth century. The belated modernizing of the Asian and African languages in comparison to the European languages may seem at present to be a great disadvantage to the realization of a modern society and culture, but in the long view this belatedness may turn out to be a great advantage. Whereas the European modern languages have developed haphazardly through the centuries, the modernization of the Asian and African languages is taking place in an era when planning has become the key word in social and cultural development. In that planning full advantage can be taken of the experiences, the strengths and weaknesses of the older modern languages and the blossoming of modern behavioral sciences, including modern linguistics. The superiority of the new Indonesian-Malaysian spelling vis-à-vis the spelling of English and various other modern European languages is a good example of this; deliberate efforts should be made to extend this superiority to the other aspects of the language, such as the vocabulary and the rules of grammar. By deliberate and rational planning this possibility is within the reach of any of the grow-

96

The writing of a normative grammar

ing modern languages of Asia. This is, in a nutshell, what I call purposeful language engineering. There is a law in the history of the rise and fall of civilizations, as well as in the continuous movements of cultural centers in the world, that backwardness at a certain historical epoch is a precondition for the most advanced position in the next epoch, since human progress in history does not take place in a straight line within the same geographical area and the same social group but has the tendency to leap from an advanced area or social group to another less-advanced area or social group, depending on the capacity of the related area and group to take full advantage of the historical situation. It is clear that in order to be able to take advantage of the present situation the Asian linguist must combine subtle linguistic sensitivity with a sophisticated mental alertness and a penetrating analysis of the trends and forces of social and cultural life in our age.

9.

THE PROBLEMS OF THE UNIFICATION OF THE INDONESIAN AND MALAYSIAN GRAMMAR

In the foregoing I have described mostly problems of the writing of a normative grammar for the Indonesian language, since it is in the writing of Indonesian grammar, Tatabahasa Baru Bahasa Indonesia (1949) that I have built up my ideas and have acquired my experience. During the five years that I was head of the Department of Malay Studies of the University of Malaya, I have, of course, become acquainted with the problems of the Malaysian language. As has been shown in the second chapter on the history of the Indonesian and Malaysian language, the Malaysian language developed rather slowly in comparison to the Indonesian language. Already in the colonial time the Dutch Government as well as Dutch scholars had given not only more attention to the language, but they were also more successful in the study and the teaching of it. It can be said that to a certain extent Malaysian has always looked at the progress of the language in Indonesia and in one way or another attempted to follow in its footsteps. It is known that Ch. A. Van Ophuysen, inspector of education in the Dutch East Indies was invited to visit Malay schools in Penang and Province Wellesly and that he expressed a rather unfavorable judgment about it. It was Van Ophuysen's grammar Spraakkunst van het Ma-

The writing of a normative grammar

97

leisch (1910) and his Kitab Logat Melayu (Book of Indonesian Words and Its Spelling, 1896) which determined the grammar, vocabulary and spelling of the Malay language of Indonesia. Malay grammar (1914) by R. O. Winstedt which was written for the second higher examination in the Malay language was not nearly as influential in Malaysia as was the grammar of Van Ophuysen in Indonesia. The most influential grammar in Malaysia in the years proceeding independence was the Ilmu Mengarang Melayu and the Pelita Bahasa Melayu, written by the known Malay scholar Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad (Za'ba). It is still the most important guide for the Malay teachers and schools, although in many respects it has not adjusted itself to the changes in the Malaysian language of the last decades while in its rules and explanation there are various contradictions and ambiguities. For my lectures at the University of Malaysia I published Tatabahasa Baru Melayu-Indonesia (1964) which was an adaptation of the Tatabahasa Baru Indonesia to the Malaysian language. Since its use was limited to my students, it could not have a wide influence in Malaysian education during the five years that I was head of the Department of Malay Studies. The various efforts at writing a more up-to-date and national grammar by Malaysian younger scholars has also not yet been able to change the situation. I have the impression, that compared to the Indonesian language, in the use of the affixes the Malay language of Malaysia has in some way deteriorated because too little attention has been paid to this phenomenon in the schools and by Malay writers and speakers. It was until recently a very common practice in Malaysia that in the textbooks for the primary schools the use of affixes was limited to a minimum. This attitude derives from the wrong application of the pedagogic concept that the language for the young people must be as simple as possible (nobody will, for instance, delete the conjugation of the English language in order to make the English simple for beginning students). By this attitude, for example, the prefixes men-, di- or the suffix -kan are very often omitted as is shown by the following examples taken from textbooks for the primary schools in Malaysia at the end of the sixties. Di-anjong rumah itu bapa Awang taroh kerusi dan meja. Di-gerai ini ada jual macam-macam barang. Kita mesti bakar sampah-sampah di-keliling rumah. Suatu malam kakaknya suroh dia ambil ayer di-perigi. On deeper analysis the morphology of the Indonesian and Malaysian

98

The writing of a normative grammar

language is undoubtedly the same, even if there is sometimes a different usage discernible, as is testified by the following examples: While in Indonesia memulai is used for to start, we find in Malaysia usually memulakan. The same is true with melupai-melupakan. The suffixes -kan and -i differ insofar as the suffix -i usually refers to a locative, while the suffix -kan points to a causative. The confusion in the use of the suffix -i and -kan is understandable, since the same act that occurs at a place or object is at the same time the cause of the change of the place or object. Another difference occurs often in the use of the prefix pe-, indicating the person or the tool of an act, and the suffix -an, indicating the act and the result of the act. This intermixture is understandable, if we compare it with the use of the English word 'thought' which can be considered as an acting subject, but at the same time can indicate a result of the process or the instrument of thinking. In Malay, for example, people use the word penimbang and pelanggan, weigher and subscriber or client, while in Indonesian for the same notion the words timbangan and langganan are used. On the other hand it is interesting to see that Malaysian used Timbalan Perdana Menteri, which should be penimbal, and pelatih in the sense of trainees, which should be latihan. There are, of course, still other incompatibilities in the use of affixes, not only between Indonesia and Malaysia but even between the dialects in both areas. For our present purposes these examples are sufficient.

10.

THE NEW COMMON SPELLING

The efforts at a common spelling dated from the 17th of April 1959, when Malaya or the Persekutuan Tanah Malayu came to an agreement with the Republic of Indonesia. In December of the same year a discussion took place between the Malaysian and Indonesian Committee for a common spelling in the Latin script, called the Melindo spelling. This spelling should, at the latest, have been announced in January 1962, but the political difficulties between both countries in the following years prevented the realization of the Melindo spelling. After the end of the political confrontation between both countries the committee of both countries came to a new agreement on the common spelling, which should be proclaimed in Indonesia during the fourtieth

The writing of a normative grammar

99

celebration of the Pledge of the Indonesian Youth on October 28, 1968. The resistance, however, of the public opinion against this common spelling was so strong that this new concept was again cancelled. At last after various deliberations in a better political atmosphere^ the new common spelling was announced at the Indonesian Independence Anniversary by the President of Indonesia on August 17, 1972, while an announcement by the Malaysian Government also took place on the same date. It is clear that after the proclamation of the same spelling for the Indonesian and Malaysian language, the most urgent problems are the coordination or unification of modern terminology and the grammar for both languages.

CHAPTER VI

The standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language

1.

LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR AS SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

If we speak about standardization, we are speaking about human behavior in its social context because it is only in the interaction between individuals in social relation that certain standardized forms of behavior are needed in order that the individuals participating in the interaction understand each other. It is only through this common understanding that social integration is possible, i.e., that the social organization can be as efficient as possible to achieve its aim and to protect the interest of its members. In this broad sense we may say that social behavior in an integrated social group is standardized behavior, i.e., behavior subjected to norms which are accepted by or understandable for the members of society. With this standardized behavior, every member of society can act in society with self-confidence and efficiency because he knows consciously or unconsciously that his fellow members know the meaning or intention of his act. Further it is also through the standardization of behavior according to norms of the social group that he knows how his fellow members understand his behavior and will respond in an understandable way to it. Accordingly standardized behavior in an integrated society can also be defined as generally expected behavior, i.e., behavior which in general can be expected from every member of the social group in the same situation. As has been said, in every society the generally expected behavior is determined by social norms. In primary social groups or Gemeinschaft with face-to-face relation, the norms have the forms of mores and folkways, which mostly are unwritten and deal with concrete facts and events. In secondary groups or Gesellschaft of modern society, laws

102

The standardization

and contracts, which are more abstract than mores and folkways, play a more important role. Laws, contracts, mores and folkways determine the social behavior of the members of society in order to be able to achieve the values of that society. Failure to conform to these social norms is threatened with social sanction from the heaviest capital punishment to the lightest rejection, ridicule or even misunderstanding, with all its consequences. Viewed from this broad and comprehensive concept of social behavior, standardized language is a necessity of social life, since it is through standardized language that misunderstanding between the members of that society can be kept to a minimum, i.e., that communication between members of that society can take place as satisfactorily as possible to smoothen the social relations for the integration of society. Thus the rules of a language, i.e., its grammar, constitute a small but important part of the total system of norms of society, especially its mores and folkways. Language phenomena belong indeed to the social facts as has been formulated by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, the German sociologist Georg Simmel or the American social philosophers George Herbert Mead and others. It exists prior and exterior to the individual and it is standardized for all the members of the language community. 2.

T H E SPECIAL SITUATION OF THE LANGUAGES OF THE NEW NATIONS

The large European languages like English, French, German, Italian, etc., have developed during the last four centuries parallel to the process of nation building of these people and, especially after the establishment of compulsory education during the nineteenth century, have reached a stable standardization, i.e., the members of these societies know what is correct and what is incorrect language. In the atmosphere of these highly stable modern languages there easily arises a static concept of language, i.e., that languages are nicely integrated entities, which have clear and stable norms, known by everyone in society. This fact was accentuated by the study of small primitive languages like the American-Indian languages and the languages of the various tribes in the Pacific, which show a high degree of uniformity in rules and norms. On this basis several theories of languages have been built, like phonology, phonemics, structural linguistics, all emphasizing the stability of language laws.

The standardization

103

The situation was quite different when the young nations of Asia and Africa decided to build up anew their societies and cultures after their liberation from their colonial masters. First of all most of the former colonies occupy extended areas inhabited by large groups of population speaking various languages, which although often related to each other, must be considered as separate ones because of their great differences. The struggle between the various language groups for the dominance or maintenance of their languages often went parallel with bloody political struggles as has been testified in the multilingual countries like India, Pakistan and Ceylon. Especially Indonesia which on its scattered islands has no less than 250 languages should consider itself lucky that through the pledge of the Indonesian Youth of October 28, 1928, it was able to bring the language problem to a satisfactory political solution in such a short time. More or less the same can be said of Malaysia. But even after the decision on the national and official language there still exist tremendous language problems, since in their further development these new nations have to go through a great transformation: they have to adjust themselves to the social and cultural problems of the twentieth century. The colonialized as well as the independent Asian and African nations during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gradually realized that their societies and cultures showed many traits which had to be changed if they wanted to survive in the modern world, which is clearly dominated by the progress of science, technology and economics. This consciousness became even stronger when many Asians and Africans attended English, French, Dutch and other schools in the colonies as well as in the home countries. We know that it was this education which stimulated the nationalistic movements to liberate the Asian and African nations from their colonial rulers and to start the modernization of their countries, aiming at the transformation of their societies and cultures into modern societies and cultures, characterized by the progress of science, technology and economics. This meant that their societies and cultures started to move, became dynamic, we even can say were revolutionized. Viewed from the standpoint of human social behavior the uniformity disappeared: anomie and dysfunction became a common characteristic. Much of the traditional behavior, habits and institutions which were considered true, good, even sacred, in the light of the new modern ideals, way of thought and Weltanschauung lost their value and very

104

The

standardization

often even their truth, goodness and holiness. A new generation with other ideals and ways of life came up; a change of value orientation manifested itself through the contact of traditional culture with European culture, which had changed gradually through the Renaissance from the dominance of religious values to the dominance of science and economics, i.e., became secularized. The secularization process which took place in Europe during centuries, occurred in the Asian countries in a few decades. This means that standardized traditional behavior gradually is replaced by a new system of behavior, which reflects the change of values and norms of the younger generation; the whole society and culture changes rapidly, comes into revolution. It is clear that in this fast-changing society and culture the old, stable social and cultural norms cannot further be used; they are too static. The old standard has lost its validity, while a new standard has not yet been established, so that everything becomes shaken in the controversies between old and new attitudes, thoughts and views of life. For a more elaborate discussion on this subject I refer to my work Indonesia: Social and Cultural Revolution.23 It is clear that in this social and cultural revolution with criss-crossing values and norms, the language behavior as the most elaborate, comprehensive and sophisticated expression of the human mind, the society and culture, cannot be an exception: everything that has been perceived and conceived in a culture realizes itself in words, and the flow of the rules of language more or less reflects the flow of the thought, feeling, will and imagination in the society and culture. We can even say without exaggeration that it is the language change which expresses in the most subtle and elaborate way the change of society and culture. As has been said, it is in this sense that the slogan that language is the soul of the people is meaningful.

3.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE

The change of the Malay language as expression of the change of society and culture during the last fifty years was very complicated because the term Malay does not represent such a clear-cut concept as the concept of nations in Europe with their languages which have become stabilized during the nineteenth century. The Malay language which was the forerunner of the Indonesian and Malaysian language

The standardization

105

was used in various ways and forms in a large area of Southeast Asia. In its position of lingua franca for such an extensive area, only the general and superficial understanding between the users of the language was important. But also the literary language at a higher level of expression and understanding was not well standardized. The literary products themselves, be they in translation or original used very often an irregular and poor language. Take, for example, the Hikayat Seri Rama of the nineteenth century, which for some time was used in Malaysia for the higher school certificate examination. The sentences were long-winded, abrupt and ambiguous. The use of the affixes was irregular or very often entirely neglected. Even the language of Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsji, the forerunner of modern Malay literature, was still very far from accurate and regular. It is, however, not justified to look for a standardized Malay language in the nineteenth century because the Indonesian and Malaysian area were at that time not a compact, integrated entity governed from a certain central position, which could coordinate the language use in the whole area. There was no significant school system, while the mass media such as newspapers, radio and television did not exist. It can indeed be said that the standardization of the Malay language started under the aegis of the Dutch colonial government in Indonesia and the British colonial government in Malaysia. The expansion of education for the natives in the Dutch-East Indies necessitated the establishment of Teachers Training Colleges. It was especially the Teacher Training College in Bukittingi from where the standardization of the Malay language started because it was the teachers graduating from this Training College who became the teachers of the Malay language not only in Sumatra but also in the Outer Islands. In the former chapter we discussed the standardization of the Indonesian language by the grammar and list of words of Van Ophuysen. This grammar was later abridged and popularized in the grammar of M. Taib, which was for many years the guide for Indonesian grammar in the Teachers Training Colleges and also for the primary schools. A strong standardizing tendency came from the Balai Pustaka Office for Popular Reading Material established in 1908, which spread through the whole of Indonesia rather extensive reading material for that time in a highly standardized form. The transformation of the Malay language and literature into the Indonesian national language and literature, although taking the form of a rebellion against the old

106

The standardization

vocabulary, the old rules of grammar and the old literary style, had not the intention to disrupt the standardization of the high Malay of the school but to create a broader standardized modern language, attuned to the requirement of the modern spirit and way of thinking. In the most used Indonesian grammar after the Second World War (Alisjahbana, 1949) the rules of grammar and the necessary changes, due to the change in attitude and way of thinking of its users and to the new larger function of the language, are discussed consciously and rationally, and some indications are given for the further development of the language. At this time there was also the magazine Pembina Bahasa Indonesia (1948-1957), which answered questions from teachers on the language in the stage of transition. Later other magazines were published such as Medan Bahasa (1951) and Bahasa dan Budaya (1952). Besides this effort at conscious standardization, the whole education in Indonesia from primary school to university has been conducted in the Indonesian language since the Japanese occupation. A whole generation has thus studied the language in school. This is the reason why (although the deviating forces are very strong; for the great majority of the Indonesians the Indonesian language is not their mother tongue) it can be said that gradually the Indonesian language has been satisfactorily transformed from a pidgin-like lingua franca into an official modern language, which is steadily developing in richness as well as in standardization. The standardization of the Malaysian language started with the establishment of the Training College in Malaka at the beginning of the century under the leadership of R. J. Wilkinson, about twenty years later than the Teacher Training College in Bukittinggi. The development of the Malay language acquired a new stimulus by the opening of the Sultan Idris Training College in 1922 in Tanjung Malim. R. O. Winstedt on that occasion deliberately expressed himself that it was the intention to standardize and rationalize the teaching of the Malay language. The following year a Translation Bureau came into being, and it was here that Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad was able to work systematically for the development of the Malay language. Real efforts at the development of the Malay language in Malaysia, as has been said before, started with the movement for Independence, when the Educational Committee of Abdul Razak formulated the objectives of the national system of education with the Malay language as the

The standardization

107

national language of the country. For this purpose a Language Institute was created, which conducted research on the Malay language and its teaching. The creation of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka which clearly has the aim of developing and enriching the language, and providing the language with reading material, was a decisive step in the standardization of the language. But nevertheless it cannot yet be said that the Malaysian language has reached a high degree of standardization. The local variations are still very clearly discernible even at the university level where students come from various parts of Malaysia. The teaching of the Malaysian language at the various schools in Malaysia has not been able to create a uniform school language. The language of the different teachers who use different textbooks differs substantially. In 1968 I indicated this with examples from widely used textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education. Even in the pronunciation of the language there still exists no standardization, since the Johor language which is considered the best language in Malaysia, pronounces the a at the end of a word as e, while in other parts of Malaysia the a is pronounced as a as in Indonesia. 4.

T H E PROBLEMS OF THE STANDARDIZATION OF THE INDONESIAN AND MALAYSIAN LANGUAGE

Meanwhile with the unification of the spelling of the Indonesian and the Malaysian language on August, 17, 1972, the problems of standardization in Malaysia as well as in Indonesia enter a new phase. The recognition that both languages are basically the same language and can be written in the same spelling implies that additional efforts must be made toward the further standardization of both languages. We have indicated that the standardization of the Indonesian as well as the Malaysian language, each in its own territory, has not yet been very successful. This failure has many reasons. First, the too-fast growth of the language itself; secondly, the situation of contemporary linguistic science; and, thirdly, the weak consciousness of the Government, in this case of the Ministry of Education in Malaysia as well as in Indonesia, of the necessity for a standard language. Although I have already indicated the tremendous speed of the development of the language, it might be useful to consider this phenomenon! separately in this chapter in the context of the need for its

108

The standardization

standardization. The fast change of society and culture in the context of the great modernization process in Indonesia and Malaysia during the last decade has poured into modern Indonesia and Malaysia so many concepts, ideas, goods, peoples and ways of life. All these have not only brought new words to the Indonesian and Malaysian language but have also changed the tempo and atmosphere of Indonesian and Malaysian life and culture. In this fast change with its many challenges and problems there is no possibility that the Indonesian and Malaysian society can respond and adjust itself adequately to it, especially if we take into account the great lag of educated people to cope with so many problems at the same time. In the haste of the work, not only the people on the market or on the street, but also the journalists, the civil servants, the community leaders, who face the mass in their everyday work, do not have the time, the calmness, to formulate their thoughts in the well-chosen and accurate words of the scientists, who can sit calmly in their offices. On the other hand it is also clear that in their daily work these people do not need an accurate and sophisticated language because most important is the momentary understanding and response. Moreover, since most of the people did not have a good education in a standardized language and come from various regional and social levels, it could not be otherwise than that their spontaneous utterances are an agglomerate of words, concepts taken from various sources and spheres of life. In this more or less chaotic situation the regulations must come from the authorities and leaders who know the rules and methods for the standardization of the language. The unfavorable fact is that linguistics as a science, which was gradually introduced to these countries by universities and students who came back from abroad, has very little interest for the regulation of the language. We can even say that the time for the standard language was over. In the English language the standard of the King's English was no longer the ideal of a good language for the common people, not even for the schools. The new linguistics which, as has been said before, has its basis in the new approach of the social sciences under influences of fimile Durkheim, G. Simmel, George H. Mead, the school of behaviorism, the school of Prague, Copenhagen and others, has emphasized a broader concept of language, which more or less considers the standard language as an artificial language. It is in the consciousness of the inadequacy of these modern linguistics in facing the problems of the mod-

The standardization

109

ernization and standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian languages that I delivered my inaugural lecture at the University of Malaya in 1964: 'The failure of modern linguistics in the face of linguistic problems of the twentieth century'.24 What we need for the development of the modern languages of the young countries of Asia and Africa is a science of linguistics which is geared to develop these languages so that they will become the best vehicle and expression of modern thought and culture. In other words: what we need is the science of language planning or language engineering. For this purpose the highly specialized modern linguistics is not enough, since language as means and expression of society and culture is inextricably related to the total structure of society and culture, its values and norms. It is not the study of language for language's sake, it is the study of language with the aim to build up a language as the most efficient vehicle of communication and expression for a new society and culture. Continuing the task and function of the colonial Dutch or English government, it is understandable that the new Indonesian and Malaysian educational authorities do not have an eye for the great importance of a standardized language for the construction of the new society and culture. In the colonial structure the need to engineer the Dutch as well as the English language did not exist. The language as a structured and standardized entity is taken for granted, and in the daily political, social and economic life the need for a sophisticated and accurate language is seldom realized. The problems become different when the use of the language expanded and entered the complex and sophisticated atmosphere of law and the sciences, which requires a more accurate and stable formulation of the various concepts and ideas. Accepting the fact that the Indonesian as well as the Malaysian language was not yet satisfactorily standardized at the time of the unification of the spelling of both languages in 1972 after so many political controversies, this does not mean that the further development and standardization of both languages must be continued separately until each of them is sufficiently standardized. On the contrary, the new political atmosphere of cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia must enable both countries to make a leap and to achieve modernization and standardization of both languages in the unified modern Indonesian-Malaysian language of the future. The emphasis must be put on the fact that both languages have the same origin, the Malay

110

The standardization

language, and together intend to become one of the important great languages of the modern world. All forces and resources must be geared to this aim. A committee must be established including all the countries which have an interest in the further development of the standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language. It is not allowed that Singapore and Brunei are excluded, and it may be that even Thailand and the Philippines could be invited to participate in the committee. It is clear that the problems faced are of tremendous dimension, but a joining of forces and resources will surely enable the satisfactory realization of the great task. For the descriptive part of this work it is necessary that a joint dictionary committee be established, with branches in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Brunei. After having reached an agreement on the basic aims and principles of the dictionary, the various branches can collect material from its own area. Regular meetings must be established to determine the final entries and text of this comprehensive dictionary which must try to include as many words as possible. To a certain extent the Kamus Dewan (Iskandar, 1970) which already includes the whole Indonesian dictionary of Poerwadarminta (1953) can be used as a base for further work. The objective description of grammatical rules must be left to research workers, and it is especially in this field that the various language departments of the universities can contribute. There is the broad field of modern terminology which forms an urgent problem for all the countries involved. But since modern terminology, especially in relation to science and technology, is universal and international, the problem faced is to a certain extent rather simple: modern terms can easily be taken from the English language, which is important in all these countries. It is clear that each of the participating countries must have a branch of the terminology committee, which must collect the necessary terms in the respective countries. In the session of the joint committee every effort must be made to arrive at a really identical terminology. For the great number of essential scientific and technological terms this is easily done. It must be also possible to arrive at uniform names for most fauna and flora, geographical and historical names, etc. There exist, however, outside these groups a large number of terms which must be different because of their different historical, religious, political and cultural background. With the standardization of the terminology we arrive already at the

The standardization

111

creative and normative part of the process of language engineering. The determination of this terminology is to a certain extent easy, since all the participating countries have the same needs and the accepted concepts deriving from the same modern cultural structure and thought. More difficult is the determination of a modern standardized grammar which should be accepted as normative for all these countries. In the former chapter I have been already rather extensive in the description of the great variety of rules of affixes, of the usage of classifying numerals, of pronouns. As has been said it could not be otherwise that the grammar committee must consist of people who have a broad view on the existing language in all parts of the Indonesian-Malaysian area and who have a genuine consciousness of the requirements of modern thought and culture. This will not be an easy task, but according to my experience in Indonesia and Malaysia, with goodwill and understanding it must be possible to compile a well-structured normative modern grammar for the participating countries. For further details I refer to the former chapter. About the vocabulary of daily usage there is not much that can be done, since it depends on the free flow of the social and cultural forces and relations. It is clear that an easy movement of the citizens of the participating countries and a free flow of reading material between these countries will promote a unification of the words of daily usage. Anyone who compares the written language of the newspapers of Malaysia and Indonesia of twenty years ago with the present language of the press in both countries will discover that a steady interpénétration and unification of the Indonesian and Malaysian languages is underway. Many words which have their origin in Indonesia, like the word tanpa, pelopor, are now commonly used in Malaysia. On the other hand the Indonesian language is not without influence from Malaysia, the words resmi, bahas, for instance, have their origin in Malaysia. 5.

T H E TASK OF THE SCHOOLS IN THE STANDARDIZATION OF THE INDONESIAN LANGUAGE

The most important agent for the standardization of the language is undoubtedly the schools, since it is in the schools that the youth systematically learn the same language in the same way through the whole country. How important the press, the radio and other mass media

112

The standardization

may be for the spread, development and enrichment of the language, we cannot expect from these agencies that they standardize the language. In their work, which in most cases is of a spontaneous character or at least does not allow a meticulous consideration of the correct usage of the language, the communication with the audience or readers is of paramount importance, and in most cases this kind of communication does not require a language which in every respect conforms to strict rules. It is this different position and attitude of the teacher and the journalist in the language community which is the source of controversies and frictions. In Indonesia of the first decade of its independence the difference between the language of the teacher and that of the journalist is rather large. As has been explained earlier, the language of the teachers has been strictly regulated by the grammar of Van Ophuysen and Mohd. Taib, while the Kitab Logat Melayu with only 10,130 words put a limit to the possibilities of the language expression of the teacher and his pupils. In a language like Indonesian which is expanding at such a fast pace, this limit is a great handicap. And it is the general opinion among speakers, writers and actors that the bahasa Melayu tinggi, or high Malay as the school language was usually called, was a very rigid and stiff language. We can say that to a certain extent the revival of Indonesian literature during the twenties and the thirties was a conscious liberation from the boundaries of the school language. I remember that in the thirties even the very unconventional Chinese Malay of the Chinese Malay newspapers such as the Sin Po and Keng Po was preferred above the school language because of its liveliness and dynamism. On the other hand, however, it is also clear that the language of the journalists and speakers of the mass meetings could not be accepted as the standard and official language, not only very often because of its vulgarity but especially because of its irregularity and arbitrariness. The school can only work for the future, but it is also clear that even in the determination of the language of the future the teacher must open his eyes for the great change in the vocabulary and the rules of the language because of the great social and cultural change for which the language is only a vehicle and an expression. In Chapter 4 I have already referred to the controversy between the teacher and the journalist on the issue of the real standard or correct Indonesian language.

CHAPTER VII

The present situation and further perspectives

1.

THE HISTORY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR THE INDONESIAN LANGUAGE

In order to be able to make a fair judgment of the present situation of the Indonesian and Malaysian language with its various problems and difficulties as well as possibilities, we have to remember the history of its development during the earlier years and specially the driving forces and ideas in its struggle. Then alone will we be able to evaluate its present achievement and its further task in the future. Already in the middle of the nineteenth century the Indonesians gradually started to realize that Dutch education would open for them not only better jobs in the structure of the colonial government of their country but also the rich perspective of modern knowledge, which was the monopoly of the Dutch. Thus more and more Indonesians, especially among the elite, wanted for their children a place in the Dutch schools and in the schools which the colonial government had opened for them. Especially the Dutch schools for Dutch children with the Dutch language as medium of instruction had the greatest attraction, since it was realized that through the knowledge of the Dutch language a new world of progress and prosperity would be open for the Indonesians.. In the first decade of this century the pressure to attend Dutch schools was so large that the Dutch Government decided to open a new kind of Dutch school to fulfill the need of the developing Indonesian community. The Dutch Native (primary) School (Hollands-Inlandse School, H.I.S.) was created, later the Dutch native junior (Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs, Mulo) and senior high school (Algemene Middelbare School, A.M.S.), so that gradually many Indonesians were able to continue their study until the university level, in this country

114

The present situation and further perspectives

or in the Netherlands. In the following decades a growing group of Indonesian intellectuals made greater claims on political and other rights, while at the same time the voice for more and more Dutch education did not become less; on the contrary it grew louder and louder. The slowness of the expansion of the Dutch native schools was the reason that every year so many Indonesian children could not get a place in these schools, with the result that greater and greater discontent spread among Indonesian parents, youth and intellectuals. The Dutch colonial government was reproached that it deliberately retarded, even suppressed, the progress of the Indonesian people. It never founded more than 250 Dutch native schools in the whole of Indonesia. Meanwhile a group of important Dutch leaders and politicians started to warn the Dutch Colonial Government that too much Western education had already been given to the Indonesians, and according to them this education would only result in greater political and economic claims from the Indonesian elite group, while greater and greater discontent and dissatisfaction would spread among the common people. It is through the slow expansion of Western education and the reactionary attitude of large groups in the colonial society that the most conscious groups among the Indonesian youth and political leaders gradually began to realize that the Dutch language never would become a real vehicle to progress into the modern world for the Indonesians. The Indonesian people must look for a new language, not only as a means for progress, but especially as a medium of communication between the various Indonesian groups, each with its own language. This language should thus also become a symbol of the unity of the Indonesian people in the struggle against the Dutch colonial Government. Since the Malay language had been for centuries the lingua franca in the whole archipelago, and even in the whole of Southeast Asia, used by traders and seafarers, in harbors and the market place, by kings, diplomats, etc., in their correspondence, it is understandable that the choice fell on the Malay language. Moreover the Malay language was already earlier used in this country by political and other organizations of an interinsular character. The decisive event in the creation of the Indonesian language as the national and unifying language was the Youth Congress in Jakarta on the 28th of October 1928, •when the Indonesian youth took an oath to have one country, one

The present stiuation and further perspectives

115

nation and one language, all called Indonesia. It was at that time that the Malay language was baptized to be the Indonesian language and became the symbol of Indonesian national unity. I do not need to mention here in detail the development of the Indonesian language through the literary and cultural movement of the Pudjangga Baru, through the first Indonesian Language Congress in 1938, through its rapid growth during the Japanese occupation, and later through its consolidation as the only official language of Indonesia in the constitution of 1945. In a short span of time the language became a truly official medium of instruction from primary school to universitary, the language of the laws and other official pronuncements, of the mass media, etc. Coming back after an absence of eleven years, from 1958 to 1968, I found that the position of the Indonesian language as the national and official language had been stabilized as none of the national and official languages of the other young countries of Asia and Africa. But there is nevertheless no reason yet to be self-satisfied with these achievements; on the contrary, the complaints about shortcomings and unsolved problems of the Indonesian language during the last years have been many and variegated.

2.

T H E SHORTCOMINGS OF THE INDONESIAN LANGUAGE AS A MODERN LANGUAGE

I have especially succinctly repeated the history of the Indonesian language with the intention of reminding us of the motivation and purpose of the acceptance of that language, i.e., to replace the Dutch language as the medium of modern education and communication and as the unifying factor among the Indonesian people in their common struggle against the Dutch colonial rule. We can now proudly say that the Indonesian language during the last decades indeed has unified the population of the archipelago with its nearly 250 languages and cultures into a single Indonesian nation. We must, however, especially remember that the Indonesian language was also intended to replace the Dutch language as the language of modern culture, which should bring modern science and economic prosperity, i.e., progress, to the Indonesian people. It is in this latter role that the Indonesian language has by far not yet fulfilled its task.

116

The present situation and further

perspectives

Replacing the Dutch language as the language of modern progressive culture, the Indonesian language must also be a modern language. What do I mean with the term modern language? Every language is the most exact and elaborate mirror of its culture. Whatever has been conceptualized or experienced in the totality of a society and culture finds its crystallization in the vocabulary of a language, and the grammar of a language must be considered as the totality of rules or norms according to which the thought and emotion of the people of that society and culture develop and deploy. Viewed from this standpoint every language is the most perfect expression of that special culture. If we accept this thesis, we cannot escape redefining the Indonesian language as a modern language, since it has replaced the Dutch language as the medium of instruction and communication in the context of modern Indonesian society and culture. It was because of the impossibility for the great majority of the Indonesian people to acquire modern knowledge through the Dutch language that it turned to the Indonesian language and attempted to shape it into a vehicle of modern life and culture. In order to understand the present problems and predicaments of the Indonesian language, I have to explain succinctly what I consider to be modern culture. I am of the opinion that modern culture - I deliberately avoid the term Western culture since modern culture is also a recent phenomenon in the West - started in the Renaissance, with the renewal of the study of Greek thought and with the rise of the new type of man who consciously liberated himself from traditional Christian concepts of the Middle Ages and started to investigate nature solely for the discovery of its laws. Thus started the scientific revolution, which was gradually followed by a technological revolution, by an industrial revolution and later by a commercial - evolution. Through the progress of science, technology and economics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we arrive at the present modern culture with an entirely different value orientation than the culture of the Middle Ages and those of the great Asian traditions. While the latter were expressive, i.e., dominated by the religious value, symbolized by the Church, the mosque and the temple, modern culture is progressive, i.e., dominated by the development of science and economics which both produce modern technology. Modern culture is centered around universities, banks and factories and not around churches, mosques and temples.

The present stiuation and further perspectives

117

As a language which replaced the Dutch language as the language of modern culture, the Indonesian language itself must express the concepts and ideas of modern culture, otherwise the Indonesian people will not be able to participate in the progress of modern society and culture. With this statement I am formulating the most urgent and crucial problem of the Indonesian language at present: to what extent is the Indonesian language a modern language like English, French, Russian, Japanese, expressing modern culture with its specific way of thinking, its specific system of concepts? It is clear that compared to the Malay language of half a century ago, the Indonesian language has far advanced toward becoming a modern language, i.e., the expression of concepts and ways of thinking found in modern society and culture through its use in school, parliament, laws, in the press, etc. But if we compare it with the Dutch language which it was supposed to replace as vehicle of modern thought and culture, it is still a backward and underdeveloped language. Although the language has been used for more than three decades as the sole medium of instruction in all kinds and at all levels of Indonesian higher education, it still faces various difficulties in its modern terminology and in the expression of modern thought. A still greater handicap of the Indonesian language as the modern official and national language of the country is that so very few books have been published during the decades after independence, especially those books which represent the basic characteristics of modern cultural values, i.e., science, economics and technology. It is this lack of a sufficient number of books dealing with these matters which determines the deterioration of academic and intellectual life in this country at present. The students as well as the lecturers have very few textbooks and other reading material in the Indonesian language at their disposal with the result that they only study on the basis of the notes they make during the lectures. Add to this the scarcity and expensiveness of English books, together with the very insufficient command of the English language, and we have a clear idea of the hopeless situation of Indonesian higher education at the present time. I have on many occasions warned the Government that if we are not able to implement the Indonesian language with the necessary books, the national and official language, which was once accepted with so much enthusiasm, will prove to be detrimental to our progress in the modern world. I should like to underline that the implementation of the Indo-

118

The present situation and further perspectives

nesian language as soon as possible with books necessary for its task as bearer and expression of modern culture should be an important part of the present Government five-year plan, of the Pelita. A welldeveloped language with sufficient books and other reading materials for the use in universities and other modern institutions are as infrastructure of the process of modernization at least as important as roads, irrigation and electricity for economic development. I would like even to go further and state that the development of the language as vehicle of modern thought is one of the preconditions of modernization and thus also of economic development. In the five-year plan of the Pelita should be included the publication of at least 1000 original or translated scientific, economic, technological and other books in the Indonesian language every year. If we are not able to make of the Indonesian language a mature modern language in the shortest time possible, it will prove to be an obstacle for the modernization of our society and culture, and a shift to the English language in Indonesian secondary and higher education might be advisable. To a certain extent we already witness an intensification of the interest in the English language among the elite group in the Indonesian community. For the time being, however, a replacing of the Indonesian language as language of education and progress by the English language will place the Indonesian government with unsurmountable financial and personal difficulties.

3.

SOME PROBLEMS OF THE MODERN VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR

It is clear that among the problems faced in the adjustment of the Indonesian/Malaysian language to modern thought and culture, those of the building of a modern terminology are foremost in importance. It is true that the coining of modern terms was already begun thirty years ago; there are already about 321,000 modern terms in the Indonesian language used in schools, in the press, in parliament, in law, etc. In Malaysia the number of terms coined by the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka amounts to 148,442. But aside from the fact that many of these terms need to be reconsidered in the light of new thought and experience for a more rational and consistent system, still a great number of new terms must be coined in the rapidly expanding modernization of Indonesian/Malaysian social and cultural life. Because of the inactivity

The present stiuation and further perspectives

119

of the Lembaga Bahasa Nasional or National Language Institute in Indonesia during the last years, the coining of the new terms is left to the various institutions and personalities without any coordination or mutual deliberation. Especially in the face of the present need for the writing and translation of a great number of scientific, technological books, etc., the activation of the Terminology Commission of the National Language Institute is a necessity. Coming to this point I would like to say a last word on the process of coining of the new terms itself. An important aspect of this process is the choice of the new words. As has been said before, in the context of Indonesian cultural history, there have always existed three clearly marked tendencies in the preference for new terms. This tendency still exists today; I would like even to say that the tendency for using Sanskrit and old Javanese words has increased during the last decade as a result of the greater activities of the army in political, economic and other aspects of social and cultural life in the atmosphere of the doctrine of dwifungsi, i.e., that the army besides its military responsibility has also to take care of the political stability, the economic, social and cultural progress of the country. Many Indonesians still consider words from Sanskrit or Old Javanese finer and commanding of more respect than other words, since they derive from the fine and more respected atmosphere of Indonesian feodality. This tendency is the strongest and very often even exaggerated in the names of buildings, institutions and sometimes of rank. The Indonesian uses for a pensioned military man or veteran the word purnawirawan (accomplished warrior); the building of the veterans is called Graha Purna Yuddha\ the office for the meetings of the President and his Ministers for the Indonesian fiveyear plans is called Bina Graha, etc. This predeliction in names of buildings is of no harm at all, but this attitude and preference makes the Indonesian language more difficult and complicated, if it intrudes in the reconstruction of a simple and efficient modern Indonesian language. A very clear example that the modern international term is better than the coined Indonesian one is the word pariwisata for tourism. The word turis is not only used in most of the modern languages, but its structure and pronunciation fit even better the Indonesian and Malaysian tongue and ear than the newly coined pariwisata. Other examples are prasarana for infrastruktur (infrastructure), swatantra for otonomi (autonomy).

120

The present situation and further perspectives

In Malaysia the tendency is to choose Arabic words because of the Islamic character of the Malaysian culture: iktisad for ekonomi (economy), intikad for keritik (critic), ishtihar for proklamasi (proclamation). Since the totality of modern concepts and terms represents the core of the systems of concepts and terms of modern society and culture which are dominated by science, economics and technology, these systems of concepts and terms will also become the core system of concepts and terms of modern Indonesian and Malaysian society and culture. In this sense the Indonesian and Malaysian language as a modern language shares with the other modern languages the core terminology as well as the system of concepts of modern society and culture. It is to the advantage of the development of the Indonesian and Malaysian language as a modern language to attempt as much as possible to use the basic international terms of the other modern languages in the coining of its modern terminology. Through this attitude the learning of a modern language or the reading of works in these languages will be easier for the Indonesian. It goes without saying that with this statement I am not demanding that we should not accept, uncritically, terms from Sanskrit, Old Javanese or Arabic. In connection with the coining of words I would like to refer to the other tendency in some Indonesian circles to create new words for existing Indonesian words because the existing words are considered coarse, kasar, not fine or halus for the refined Indonesian heart and ear. As we all know it is especially in the Javanese culture that the feeling for fineness is so dominant that it has created a unique Javanese value structure. The language has developed a complex system of stratification of fineness as no other language in the world. To a certain extent, however, it is through this complex and overly sophisticated stratification, in contrast to modern democratic ideas, that the Javanese language has become a very difficult language and thus does not easily lend itself to modernization. There is a danger that under the influence of the Javanese language this overly sophisticated stratification of fineness in one form or another will also penetrate into the Indonesian language and thus make the language more difficult and complicated than necessary. It is already more than a decade since the words pria and wanita have been used for man and woman in the Indonesian language, giving a finer word for the existing words laki-

The present stiuation and further perspectives

121

laki and perempuan.25 During the last years various new words have been coined to provide more refined words for those which are considered coarse or kasar: tunasusila meaning moralless, without moral, has been coined as a kata halus or fine word for prostitute, tunawisma meaning homeless, for vagabond, tunakarya or jobless for an unemployed person, etc. Since the fine language is called Kromo in contrast to Ngoko, the kasar language, we are justified in speaking of the process of kromonization in the Indonesian language under the influence of the Javanese language. It goes without saying that this process of kromonization must be prevented from developing further, for there is the danger that the Indonesian language will arrive in the same cul-de-sac as the Javanese language has. Another phenomenon which has to be watched carefully in the development of the Indonesian language during the last decade is the abundant use of acronyms, i.e., the abbreviation of words or combination of words. Kementrian Luar Negeri becomes Kemlu, Jakarta Raya becomes Jaya, etc. Sumatera Barat becomes Sumbar, Kalimantan Barat becomes Kalbar, etc. If it is limited to few cases, we do not need worry about it. During the last years, however, the acronyms have not only become a fashion but a passion; the newspapers are full of them. Nobody really knows all of them, so that the reading of a newspaper has become very often a word puzzle. Moreover most of the abbreviations are not as logical as the examples I have given. Who can guess that Hankam is the acronym of Pertahanan dan Keamananl In using acronyms, as well as the new coined Kromo words, we should realize that with their creation no new concepts were created but only symbols, so that they only burden our memory without adding any new meaning. Therefore I would like to call on all of the users of the Indonesian language to limit as far as possible new Kromo words and new acronyms. The same tendency started already earlier in Malaysia, although not as abundantly as in Indonesia. Some examples are the word jabanah (deriving from jalan bawah tanah), for subway, hakis (deriving from habis kikis) for erosion. It is not only in the vocabulary that great confusion occurs; the Indonesian grammar also faces various problems. It is well known that the Indonesian language is a relatively easy language with a simple grammar. The most important feature of the latter is the use of affixes in the formation of derivative words. In the Malay language as lingua

122

The present situation and further perspectives

franca, that is, as the language of communication between so many ethnic groups with different mother tongues, there was always the tendency toward a careless use of the affixes. In the superficial contact between traders and sailors in the harbor and the market place the random use or even the neglect of the affixes did not matter too much, since a lack of clarity in the spoken word could always be supplemented by human gestures. But once the language becomes the medium of instruction in schools, the language of law, of official correspondence, it must adjust itself to a more exact formulation of thoughts. I have said that it was the great merit of the Dutch scholars in the past that they seriously attempted to arrive at a standard Malay, which was called high Malay or school Malay. The English colonial government in Malaysia did not realize the necessity of a standard language in the same degree, so that up to the present time Indonesian is a far more structured and standardized language than Malaysian. This does not mean, however, that nothing need to be done for the standardization of the Indonesian languages. It is the dialect of Jakarta, the spoken language in daily life and the language of the press, which are the strongest impediments to a stricter standardization of the official language. It is clear that the dialect of Jakarta as a strange mixture of native and foreign language elements shows great deviations in the rules of its grammar from the Indonesian language. The spoken language and the language of the press are not yet fully standardized since so many officials and editors still do not have a good command of the language, for they have not learned the language adequately in school. A good example of the unstability of the grammatical rules is the random use of the prefix me-. I also mentioned that through the weak consciousness in modern linguistics of the meaning of grammatical norms and through the overwhelming influence of the press and the Jakarta dialect, the deviating tendencies in grammatical rules have penetrated into the language of the school. This fact has been accelerated by years of inefficient teaching of the language in the IKIP or Teachers Training Colleges. Moreover according to my observations there is a certain inferiority feeling among teachers about their task and possibilities in the standardization of the Indonesian language. With the overwhelming influence of the spoken word and the language of the press on the development of the Indonesian language, the teachers feel themselves helpless. They

The present stiuation and further perspectives

123

have no guidance and no strong support from the Ministry of Education or from the Lembaga Bahasa Nasional (National Language Institute) to defend a standardized language.

4.

THE NECESSITY OF A REORGANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE INSTITUTE AND THE BALAI PUSTAKA

I would like to elaborate on the necessity to reorganize two institutions of language development, one the Lembaga Bahasa Nasional (National Language Institute) and the other the Balai Pustaka, i.e., the Government publishing house which during the Dutch period provided reading material in great quantities for the libraries as well as the common people. It is the task of the National Language Institute to guide the development of the Indonesian language, to give rules or norms where there is anarchy, to give discipline where there is nonchalance and carelessness. The coining of modern terms should be continued; some people must be appointed to continue the work for the dictionary which was started by Purwadarminta. In all this work, however, it must have a strong consciousness of the possibility of building up a standardized simple Indonesian language, attuned to the efficiency and rationality of modern culture. It should be kept in mind by the National Language Institute that with a broad knowledge of the basic ideas and trends of modern thought and culture, it should be possible to make out of the present Indonesian language one of the best or maybe even the best modern language of the future. Last but not least the National Language Institute must become the institute which should be responsible for an adequate translation of the many, many books, from modern languages as well as from Indonesian regional languages waiting for translation into the Indonesian language. In regard to the Balai Pustaka, the Ministry of Education should reform this institution so that it becomes once again the agent for the spread of good and cheap books for the common people. Coming back to Indonesia after an eleven-year stay abroad, I realized how privileged my children are that they have developed a reading habit and that they have been able to read so many books, unattainable f o r the average Indonesian child. But besides the lack of children's books

124

The present situation and further perspectives

there is also a tremendous lack of simple basic books on electricity, on cattle breeding, on Indonesian fauna and flora, on fishery, carpentry, on everything. Indonesia is not yet so far with its private publishing business that the Government can stand aloof as a spectator; the Government has still to do a lot itself. The whole country is crying for libraries in every village and town. I know that Balai Pustaka is well equipped for this task; what is lacking is entrepreneurship and a responsibility for and an insight in the primary needs of the mind of the Indonesian people for its progress in our time.

5.

THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE UNIFICATION OF THE INDONESIAN AND MALAYSIAN LANGUAGE

The second important problem of the Indonesian language at present is its coordination and standardization with the Malay language in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. As is well known, the Indonesian language and the Malaysian language are basically the same language, i.e., Malay. It is to the advantage of the Indonesian and Malaysian language as a modern language that a standardization of spelling, grammar and vocabulary could be achieved as soon as possible alongside a cooperation in the provision of books, encyclopedies and other necessities. A common language institution will surely work to the advantage of the participating countries. The unification of the spelling on August 17, 1972, was a great step toward the ideal of the unification of the Indonesian and Malaysian language. It is encouraging to see that the newly published Malaysian dictionary, the Kamus Dewan by Dr. Teuku Iskandar in Kuala Lumpur has included all Indonesian words of the Indonesian dictionaries, Kamus Umum Bahasa Indonesia by W. J. S. Poerwadarminta and the Kamus Moderen by St. M. Zain, so that it is now the most complete dictionary of the Indonesian-Malaysian language. I have especially put the coordination and standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language as the second important issue of the Indonesian language, since I am convinced that the importance of a language to a great extent depends on the number of users of that

The present stiuation and further perspectives

125

language. A language with a greater number of users has greater potentialities for development and progress than a smaller one. With the Malaysian language, the Malay language of Singapore and Brunei, the Indonesian/Malaysian language will be the sixth largest language in the world, used by about 140,000,000 people. If we remember that the same language is also spoken in the Southern part of Thailand and even in some parts of the Philippines, its position is even stronger. The UNESCO project for the study of Malay culture, which is supported not only by Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, but also by Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, even Madagascar, will undoubtedly give to the Indonesian/Malaysian language a chance to play in the future an even more important role in the whole of Southeast Asia. The Indonesian/Malaysian language is the most important language of the Malay-Polynesian group which has the opportunity to become a large, mature language in the modern world. In this connection I would like to mention that in Australia the Indonesian language is already available for students at the high school and in some places even at the primary school level. It is to be hoped that the Indonesian government will take the initiative and also the leadership in the coordination and standardization of the Indonesian and Malaysian language to the advantage of both countries and the whole of Southeast Asia.

Notes

1. For a survey of the modernization of the languages of Asia, see Alisjahbana (no date, a). 2. For the hesitation in the Asian mind, see Alisjahbana (1965a). 3. For a further explanation of this value theory in relation to cultural phenomena, see Alisjahbana (1966). 4. It is clear that words like algebra, chemistry, etc., which in an earlier period were assimilated must remain in modern terminology, since they have for a long time been part and parcel of modern terminology. 5. There is a great deal of confusion in the use of the terms Malay and Indonesian: In the English language the word Malay is used to denote the Malay people in Malaysia and Indonesia and also all the languages in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, including even some in Madagascar and Formosa. The term Indonesian is also used for these languages in continental scholarly writing. At the same time, Indonesia is the name for the Republic of Indonesia and its national language (which is the same as Malay). More confusion is added by the word 'Malaysia' for the new state combining Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah in North Borneo. The word Malaysia has also been employed as a synonym for Indonesia in the broader sense. 6. For detailed bibliographical material on the history and development of Malay and Indonesian, see A. Teeuw (1961). 7. See also the entry under 'Onderwijs' in Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff; Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1919). 8. For the history of the publishing house Balai Pustaka, Volkslectuur, see Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie, (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff; Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1921). For die work of this publishing house and the libraries established by it, see the reports of the Volkslectuur, which were published every year before the war: Eenige Resultaten van de Arbeid van het Kantoor voor de Volkslectuur (BataviaCentrum, Volkslectuur). 9. For further information on modern Indonesian literature, see Teeuw (1967).

128

Notes

10. For a more detailed description of the development of Malay teacher's training, see Had bin Salleh (1967). 11. Penyata Jawatan-Kuasa Pelajaran, Kuala Lumpur, 1956. 12. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, A General Outline of its First Ten-Year Progress and Achievements, Kuala Lumpur, 1967. 13. For the activities of Angkatan Sasterawan 1950, see Memoranda Angkatan Sasterawan 1950 (Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1962). 14. For a survey of the development of modern Malay language and literature, see Abidin bin Ahman (1941b) and also Osman (1961). 15. Kertas Kerja Konggeres III Bahasa dan Persuratan Melayu Malaya. Laporan tentang Bahasa Melayu Malaya dan Indonesia, dikemukakan oleh Persatuan Bahasa Melayu Universiti Malaya (Singapore, 1956). 16. The international words do not always need to come from GrecoLatin or its derivatives. There are in our time many modern words deriving from many languages of the world, such as algebra and chemistry from Arabic. 17. There are several exceptions to this rule such as the place of numeral adjectives before substantives, etc. 18. See the introduction to Kamus Istilah Asing (Jakarta, Pustaka Rakyat, 1945). 19. This word was first used when the Akademi Nasional changed its name to Universitas Nasional in 1953. 20. Batavia, Landsdrukkerij, 1896. 21. See my article 'Awalan ber- dan me-' in Alisjahbana (1957, pp. 129144). 22. Compare formil (English: formal), intelektuil (English: intellectual). However, during the last years a new tendency is discernible, namely, to prefer English-influenced forms and pronunciation: formal, intelektual, rasional. 23. Kuala Lumpur, Oxford University Press, 1969. 24. Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya, 1965. 25. In parenthesis I would like to bring to your attention that the use of wanita for perempuan is based on a mistaken notion, since basically the word perempuan represents a more refined and noble meaning than wanita, which according to Prof. Purbatjaraka has the same meaning as the Indonesian word betina, female animal.

References

Abidin bin Ahmad, Zainal (Za'ba, pseud.) (1941a), 'Malay journalism in Malaya', JMBRAS, 19 (2). — (1941b) 'Recent Malay literature', JMBRAS, 19 (1). Alisjahbana, S. Takdir, Ed. (no date, a), The Modernization of Languages in Asia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Society of Asian Studies. — (no date, b), 'The modernization of languages in Asia in historical and socio-cultural perspective'. In S. Takdir Alisjahbana, Ed., The Modernization of Languages in Asia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Society of Asian Studies. — (1933), 'Bahasa Indonesia', Pudjangga Baru /, pp. 129-178. — (1946), Kamus Istilah I. Djakarta, Pustaka Rakyat. — (1947), Kamus Istilah II. Djakarta, Pustaka Rakyat. — (1949), Tatabahasa Baru Bahasa Indonesia. Djakarta, Pustaka Rakyat. (38th ed., Dian Rakyat, 1973). — (1957), Dari perdjuangan dan pertumbuhan bahasa Indonesia. Djakarta, Pustaka Rakyat. — (1964), Tatabahasa Baru Melayu-Indonesia. Petaling Jaya, Zaman Baru. — (1965a), 'The cultural forces in Asia and international understanding'. In Cultural Affairs and International understanding. Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press. — (1965b), 'The failure of modern linguistics in the face of linguistic problems of the twentieth century'. Inaugural lecture, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press. — (1966), Values as Integrating Forces in Personality, Society and Culture. Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press. — (1967), 'Der moderne Mensch und seine Religion'. In Richard Schwarz, Ed., Menschliche Existenz und moderne Welt. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter. — (1968), 'Soal standard bahasa Melayu', Berita Harlan, June 1, 3, 4. Bakyr, Mahmud (1968), 'Brunei and the official language issue', Papers of the Conference on the Modernization of Languages in Asia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Society of Asian Studies.

130

References

Brandstetter, R. (1910), Monographien zur Indonesischen Sprachen, 6. Wurzel und Wort in den Indonesischen Sprachen. Luzern. Brugmans, I. J. (1938), Geschiedenis van het Onderwijs in NederlandschIndië. Groningen, J. B. Wolters. Casparis, J. C. de (1950), 'Inscripties uit de Cailendra-tijd', Prasasti Indonesia I, Jawatan Purbakala Republik Indonesia. Bandung, A. C. Nix, pp. 50-73. Chelliah, D. D. (1960), A History of the Educational Policy of the Straits Settlements with Recommendations for a New System Based on the Vernaculars. Singapore. (Ph. D. Thesis, University of London, 1940). Clough, Shepard B. (1959), The Economic Development of Western Civilization. New York, McGraw-Hill. Coèdes, G. (1930), 'Les inscriptions Malaises de Çrivijaya', Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, 30, pp. 29-80. Dempwolff, O. (1934—1938), 'Vergleichende Lautlehre des Austronesischen Wortschatzes', Zeitschrift fur eingeborenen - Sprachen, 15, 17, 19. Drewes, G. W. J. (1948), Van Maleisch naar Basa Indonesia. Leiden, E. J. Brill. Fokker, A. A. (1950), Beknopte Grammatica van de Bahasa Indonesia. Groningen-Djakarta, J. B. Wolters. Had bin Salleh, Awang (1967), 'Malay teacher training in Malaya (18781941)'. Bachelor of Education Thesis, Kuala Lumpur. Hendon, Rufus S. (1966), The Phonology and Morphology of Ulu Muar Malay. New Haven, Department of Anthropology, Yale University. Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs-Commissie (1930), Eindrapport, 2 vols. Weltevreden, Batavia, Landsdrukkerij. Publicaties Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs-commissie, No. 11. — (1930-1931), Historisch Overzicht van het Regeeringsbeleid ten Aanzien van het Onderwijs voor de Inlandsche Bevolking, 2 vols. Weltevreden, Batavia, Landsdrukkerij. Publicaties Hollandsch-Inlandsch Onderwijs-Commissie, No. 9. Iskandar, Teuku (1970), Kamus Dewan. Kuala Lumpur, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Krom, N. J. (1931), Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis. 's-Gravenhage, Martinus Nijhoff. Leonard, Sterling Andrus (1962), The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage, 1700-1800. New York. Nef, John U. (1960), Cultural Foundations of Industrial Civilization. New York, Harper Torchbook. Nieuwenhuis, G. J. (1952), Het Nederlandsch in Indie. Groningen, J. B. Wolters.

References

131

Osman, M. Taib (1961), An Introduction to the Envelopment of Modern Malay Language and Literature. Singapore. Pigafetta (1800-1801), Premier voyage autour du monde par le Chev. Pigafetta, sur l'escadre de Magellan, pendant les années 1519, 1520, 1521, et 1522; suivi de l'extrait du traite de Navigation du même auteur, et D'une Notice sur le chevalier Martin Behaim, avec la description de son Globe Terrestre. Paris, H. J. Jansen, Imprimeur-Librarie, L'an IX. Poerwadarminta, W. J. S. (1953), Kamus Umum Bahasa Indonesia. Djakarta, Balai Pustaka. (4th ed., 1966). Rostow, W. W. (1961), The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge. Sorokin, Pitirim A. (1941), Social and Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 4. New York. Sudarno (no date), 'Persoalen bunyi dan tatabunyi bahasa Indonesia serta usaha pembakuannya'. Mimeo. Teeuw, A. (1961), A Critical Survey of Studies on Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff. — (1967), Modern Indonesian Literature. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff. Volksraad (1927-1928), Handelingen. Voorhoeve, P. (1955), Twee Maleische Geschriften van Nuruddin ar-Räniri. Leiden, E. J. Brill. Weisgerber, Leo (1962), Grundzüge der inhaltbezogenen Grammatik. Düsseldorf, Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann. Whitehead, A. N. (1949), Science and the Modem World. Mentor Books. Whorf, Benjamin Lee (1956), Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Ed. by J. B. Caroll. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press. Winstedt, R. O. (1917), 'Report of the Assistant Director of Education, Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, vernacular and industrial education in the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines'. Paper no. 22, Straits Settlements. Yamin, Muhammed (1926), Verslag van het Eerste Indonesche Jeugdcongres, 30 april - 2 mei 1926. Weltevreden, Jong Indonesia CongresComite, pp. 48-70. Yoke, Ho Peng (1967), The Birth of Modern Science in China. Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE Edited by Joshua A. Fishman 1. Advances in the Sociology of Language Volume I: Basic Concepts, Theories and Problems: Alternative Approaches Ed. by J. A. Fishman 1976, 418 pages, 2nd ed. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7732-1

2. Advances in the Sociology of Language Volume II: Selected Studies and Applications Ed. by J. A. Fishman 1972, 534 pages. Paperbound ISBN: 90-279-2302-7

3. Multilingualism in the Soviet Union Aspects of Language Policy and its Implementation by E. Glyn Lewis 1972, xx + 332 pages. Paperbound ISBN: 90-279-2352-3

4. Perspectives on Black English Ed. by J. L. Dillard 1975, 392 pages. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7811-5

5. Advances in Language Planning Ed. by J. A. Fishman 1974, 590 pages. Paperbound ISBN: 90-279-2618-2

6. The Revival of a Classical Tongue Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Language by Jack Fellman 1973, 152 pages. Paperbound ISBN: 90-279-2495-3

7. The Political Sociology of the English Language An African Perspective (Who are the Afro-Saxons?) by Ali A. Mazrui 1975, 232 pages. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7821-2

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE Edited by Joshua A. Fishman 8. Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems Ed. by J. A. Fishman 1976, in prep. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7552-3

9. Advances in the Study of Societal Multilingualism Ed. by J. A. Fishman 1976, in prep. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7742-9

10. Language and Politics Ed. by William M. O'Barr and Jean F. O'Barr 1976, xvi + 506 pages. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7761-5

11. Universalism versus Relativism in Language and Thought Proceedings of a Colloquium on the Sapir - Whorf Hypotheses Ed. by Rik Pinxten 1976, xiv + 310 pages. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7791-7

12. Selection among Alternatives in Language Standardization The Case of Albanian by Janet Byron 1976, 160 pages. Paperbound ISBN: 90-279-7542-6

13. Black Names by J. L. Dillard 1976, 114 pages. Paperbound ISBN: 90-279-7602-3

15. Issues in Sociolinguistics Ed. by R. O. J. Uribe-Villegas 1976, in prep. Clothbound ISBN: 90-279-7722-4

Other volumes are in preparation MOUTON • THE HAGUE • PARIS