Indonesia Language also known as (Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa, or Indonesian), de facto language of Republic of Indonesia, spoken by approximately 250 million speakers or more in this world, centralized in Indonesia, uniquely spoken as second language by majority of most Indonesians who probably speak regional language as their mother language.
Indonesian language is originally Malay language, spoken as lingua franca of nusantara during Netherland’s colonialization, uniting the vast country that comprises of hundred different language. Due to different influence from colonial masters, Indonesia and Malay language evolved differently and now considered separate entities.
Indonesian language is probably the most important identity of our country. This language bridging the gap between hundreds of tribes that speak in different native language. Indonesian language is undeniably important, though surprsingly, many of its native speakers do not really feel proud of it.
Here is just a random thought of an Indonesian native speaker of Bahasa Indonesia, one of the most beautiful, simple language in the world and confused why some people in his country do not respect this beautiful language.
Indonesian Language: Characteritic
Indonesian language is agglunative language, compared to indo-european language family, the rule is different, one could say it’s simpler because no inflection occurs, no complicated conjugation, no time differences.
The most confusing part is probably the prefix and suffix, to modify meaning of verb, indonesian language uses prefix and suffix which might confuses non-native speaker if they want to study this language gramatically.
But don’t worry, we are much easier than Turkish!
Indonesian language is seen less important than other international language (english, french, spanish, mandarin).
Indonesian language currently only concentrated in Indonesia, one might say Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia also speak our language, but we usually consider them speak different accent, because our vocabulary is distinguishably different, and we tend to jokingly mock each other due to different usage in vocabularies.
Language Wars: Once Upon Time, There Was Language
These days, English is a hegemony in language, the world war II winner was dominated by english-speaking countries. World War II was the beginning of spread of an international language that has never been experienced by any language before, not even greek, latin, or germany.
English is slowly turning into a default de facto language, if you could not speak English, you will be left from globalization, though this view of point might be biased, because Chinese still has the most speakers today.
Many people start learn Chinese because Chinese people are commonly monoglot, they could not speak language other than their language, but they don’t bother to learn english, because people will learn their language. The same goes for other countries such as France, Germany, and Japan.
The decision makers of these countries are well aware that their language distribution is smaller compared to english, to win a language war, to keep language being lingucided by a certain de facto language, it’s not enough with the native speaker. It must be distributed.
To preserve language, it’s necessary to spread them across their border. Here is the importance of intercultural exchange. France, Germany, and Japan have been aggressively promoting their culture and language through their cultural centers. France has Centre Cultural de France, Germany has Goethe Institute, and japan with Japan Foundation.
But Indonesia? Unless you took Indonesian Study, you will probably won’t find any Indonesian language class. It’s disappointing fact that interest of our language and culture in Australia has been diminishing, because chinese is seen more interesting and more prospective.
Even if their language is less spoken compared to english, they still manage to attract foreigners to study their language. Japan attract more student these days thanks to aggresive distribution of anime and manga in internet.
Prestigious language will Kill Your Language?
It’s very interesting to note, English starting to be seen as prestigious language. English is associated with intelligence, if you can’t speak english or write in english, you are missing something.
English inflicting inferiority complex to their non-native speakers, just like Greek has done to Egyptian long time ago, when they were forced to adopt greek and inventing the now-endangered coptic language.
Coptic language is a fine example of language defeat because coptic speakers are few than hundred in the world, and egyptian government doesn’t really bother a language revival like India did to 15 of their endangered language.
Economical Value of Indonesian Language
What’s the economical value of Indonesian language you ask? It might hard to measure, especially today, when people start feeling inferior with their native language.
It’ not only happening in Indonesia. It happens everywhere, which turned many colloquial english that is known as engrish.
Luckily Indonenglish is still not considered as real engrish term, it still considered as satire in our country, because too many people here don’t really feel proud with their language. Pop novel writers assign title of their latest works in english title, the characters in their language speaks random english here, there, and everywhere.
We as speaker of Indonesian language, language with most spoken native speaker in the world should begin to think, what is economical value of our language? How to attract foreigners to speak Indonesians that will eventually will promote our country in long term situation?
I think the simplicity of Indonesian grammar is the core value of Indonesian language. The simple rules actually the main point of our language. If it’s easier than other language, why not encourage people to study and practice it?
I have befriended with some non-native speakers, one Belgian man, one japanese girl, surprisingly according to them, indonesian language is much easier than english.
They could grasp it in relatively short time. The Belgian man was lecturer, speaks French, English, Indonesian, and Japanese. He teaches for quite time in jogjakarta, he even published a book in Indonesian language!
The japanese girl in other hand, said she prefers to speak with me in Bahasa instead of english. I was dazzled, is our language that easy?
Bilingualism vs Inferiority Complex
It’s common if you see middle-class Indonesians speak english vocabulary randomly, speaking partially Indonesia (”eh, tomorrow gw mau go to mall dengan friends, you come? Pick me up ya”).
There are several cases when one is raised bilingually. They are forced to speak english in their house, but speak Indonesia outside, it sure helps to make english as their native language, but it’s also uncommon if they end up not fluent in either language because they only speak the language partially.
I myself, consider it’s rather improper to speak english in public space. Sure, english is useful, but seriously, I feel irked when hearing someone speak partial english loudly in public space as if they want to show off that they could speak English.
In case Indonesians conduct conversation with me in English, I will usually reply back in Bahasa, I think it’s weird that two people speaking same native language, but conduct conversation in other language. Maybe people start speaking english when they want to make certain impression to their listener? Reasons could be vary. I’m simply too lazy to think in English unless it’s necessary.
Language is identity, english is language that is associated with western, technology and intellectualism. I won’t be surprised if we unconsciously speak english with our other frienda to create gap, to create impression that we are smart as well as them.
But again, there are also many cases when these people couldn’t find certain vocabulary and they could spell the english version faster, so my opinion is highly subjective. I just hope there will be no another CLK though. (psst, CLK fans, you could actually speak like cincha through this friendly Talk Like Cinta applet!) My good friends Atri (she could speak in many English accents, that’s just so cool! 
) and Yoan have different case though, because they were raised in English-speaking community, they speak more English in private space because they are more comfortable with it.
Different people have different reasons I guess. Each case is exception.
Bahasa Indonesia: The Potential Lingua Franca in Southeast Asia?
Middle East has Arabic, Africa has French, Europe has English, French, German, and Spanish, while South East Asia speaks English as its common tongue. It’s not really a problem since language is basically method to conduct commnunication.
Indonesian language has potential to become business language such as English, French, Spanish, and Chinese.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was discussing with a Thailand expatriate once during summer course, it was surprising, he actually supported Indonesian language to become common language in Indonesia. Indonesian non-native speakers apparently could not differ Indonesian language with malaysian, just like we couldn’t differ the differences between Egyptian Arabic and Syrian Arabic.
Indonesian language is currently “invading” the other nations in South East Asia such as Singapore, and malaysia with our cultural exports. People in Kuala Lumpur apparently start speaking with our vocabulary, which is pretty distinguishable from Malay language.
I really think it’s a good development. Many people start learn Japanese because they want to read manga and anime, now malaysians and singaporean unconsciously mimicking our language.
I think it’s not impossible that someday there will be unification of Malay-Indonesian language, which will bridge the gap between the two countries which have been hostile due lack of communication.
It’s funny fact that three neighbours that are more similar than being different actually speak with english, when we have basically same language.
Conclusion: Both Languages are important
in the end, I think we should never forget that both language is important. We should never forget that our language is beautiful, our language is uniting 250 million speakers from different background. Let’s not fall like these who do not respect of their mother language.
But I believe you, who reading this also share same thought with me, Satu nusa, satu bangsa, satu bahasa kita. Bahasa Indonesia.
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