By Karim Raslan
Indonesia’s rapidly expanding economy will boost commercial importance of the Malay language, and Malaysian parents will start taking it more seriously.
INDONESIA’S rising strength will change the way many Malaysians view Bahasa Malaysia. At the moment, middle-class Malaysians tend to view Malay as a language with limited commercial value compared with English or Chinese.
However, as Indonesia transforms itself into an economic powerhouse, its language will become increasingly important globally. Malay will also benefit because it is the shared root for both Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia.
At the same time, the republic’s exploding consumer market of 240 million is tantalising. Global players are descending on Jakarta.
Recent investors range from Korea’s Lotte to Britain’s HSBC. Also, private equity group CVC has just purchased 90% of the national department store chain Matahari.
These investors know that in order to succeed in the domestic market, their managers must be able to understand the local language.
Ironically, then, Indonesia’s rapidly expanding economy will force middle-class Malaysians to wake up to the importance of Bahasa Indonesia, a language that literally binds the archipelago together.
I am confident that it will boost the commercial importance of the Malay language and that Malaysian parents will start taking it more seriously.
The economic potential, however, is only one aspect of this argument. A much more important lesson is socio-political.
Even though the two languages share the same root, they’ve developed in very different ways. This reflects the contrasting historical narratives at work.
Malaysians can learn a great deal from examining these differences.
Indeed, many of our underlying political problems are revealed in our attitude to the Malay language.
This in turn will help us understand why we are currently struggling as a nation.
Our politics has stunted the development of Malay language, and this is hurting us. For a start, Bahasa Malaysia is less vibrant, less intellectual and less creative than Bahasa Indonesia.
One only has to visit a Gramedia bookstore with all its translated books to realise the extent to which we have been left behind by our neighbours.
Bookstores in second-tier cities such as Jember and Pekanbaru have a better selection of books published in the vernacular than any bookstore in Kuala Lumpur.
Why? It’s because Bahasa Indonesia is very much the product of the republic’s revolutionary ethos. Sukarno’s flamboyant rhetoric is never far from the surface.
Furthermore, Indonesia’s struggle for Independence is etched in their national psyche. This imbues the language with a capacity for change and dynamism.
In Malaysia, the dominant ethos is aristocratic.
For better or for worse, our first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, embedded the elitism of the Istana firmly into our na-tional consciousness.
As a result, we are more feudal (consider our obsession with titles) while the Indonesians are more egalitarian. Witness our different words for government: pemerintah (Indonesia) and kerajaan (Malaysia).
This dichotomy is clear in the way the two languages have developed, and indeed diverged.
A landmark of Indonesia’s national awakening was the historic Sumpah Pemuda of Oct 28, 1928.
It also marked the first time Malay was formally promoted as Bahasa Indonesia – the language of unity.
Interestingly, the nationalist thinkers of the time chose not to use Javanese – the language of the largest community in the then-Dutch East Indies – despite its rich, centuries-old literary tradition.
Instead, they selected a language – Malay – that was used by many as a lingua franca but only spoken as a first language by a tiny minority of about 3% of the population.
In doing so, leaders such as Mohamad Yamin wanted a national language that would be an open system: accessible to all and value-free.
This would help bind together a disparate set of peoples: Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu. As such, the language had to be easy to learn, adaptable and open to external influences.
In addition, they wanted to avoid the caste-like strictures of Javanese in which a speaker’s social position was always of paramount importance.
These egalitarian principles were later expanded on by polymaths such as Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, the essayist and academic, and Goenawan Mohamad, the founding editor of the news weekly Tempo.
Sadly, our language has developed in the opposite direction.
We have endeavoured to make Bahasa Malaysia more Malay and less Malaysian. Our language has evolved into a closed system – shutting out non-Malays and non-Muslims alike.
Is it any wonder then that Bahasa Malaysia has failed to become a unifying force like Bahasa Indonesia?
If we want to move forward, we mustn’t only leverage off Indonesia’s economic strengths. Their politics and society should be an example to us as well.
Source: The Star
Popularity: 7% [?]
As recently I visited Malaysia, now the country is about encouraging use of Bahasa Malaysia. The program named ” Bulan Bahasa ” on October 2010 -If I’m not wrong- which to provide the citizen making Bahasa Melayu/Malaysia as dominated and very suggested language to many purposes (not only economy purpose). It’s very good program in order encouraging awareness of nationalism.
Hopefully it will benefit Malay as well as success proven by Indonesian.
you know what ??? i think is easier just to merge in ….
but hey ….. politic had their own beat ….
It will benefit malaysians for sure. Please be informed that some countries in Asia Pacific have Bahasa Indonesia programs in their educational curriculum.
if you staying long enough in KL you may find some of the youngsters here likes to use or more accurately mixing bahasa indonesia and malaysia when they talk. Especially our “bahasa gaul” like gue, elo, etc. i find it quite hilarious sometimes(i don’t mean it in a bad way so please no offence here). They just sounds funny with their malay or chinese accent :p
But somehow i feel proud cause they have interest in our language. Talk about sinetron’s effect?? lol
oh btw if you have time check a malaysian action movie called KL Drift 2 if i’m not mistaken. It shows how our language influence bahasa malaysia today
Kata-kata anda tidak benar sama sekali dan ini secara jelas menunjukkan betapa sedikitnya pengetahuan anda tentang Malaysia.
Kasihan. Malah sampai mau menitis air mata saat saya membaca komentar anda. Apa anda tidak tahu kata2 elo dan gue yang dipakai sebagai bahasa gaul di Indonesia itu sebenarnya kata pinjaman dari bahasa cina dialek Hokkien? Benar-benar memprihatinkan. Benar memang telahan saya selama ini bahawa ramai orang Indonesia hanya ada sedikit pengetahuan tentang Malaysia.
Elo datang dari kata Lu dan Gue datang dari kata Gua. Kedua-duanya dari dialek Hokkien. Dalam bahasa Cina dialek Kantonis, Lu jadi Lei dan dalam bahasa Mandarin Gua jadi Woa. Semuanya ada kemiripan kerana masing-masing datang dari keluarga bahasa yang sama iaitu Sino-Tibetan.
KL Drift adalah filem remaja mengesahkan kehidupan anak-anak muda Melayu yang nakal di Malaysia. Di negara ini, sebagai tanda tingginya tingkat kenakalan mereka, pemakaian kata gantinama gua untuk aku dan lu untuk kamu sudah sering berlaku malah telah berlaku sebelum merdeka lagi. Kata-kata ini adalah pengaruh dari dialek hokkien, mengingat ramainya cina Hokkien di Malaysia. Bukan pengaruh kata Elo dan Gue dari dialek jakarta seperti yang anda katakan. Sangat memprihatinkan, anda sendiri tak tahu kalau kata ganti nama yang sering anda gunakan itu adalah kata pinjaman ari bahasa lain. Maaf, saya bukan mahu mentertawakan, hanya mahu anda berfikir sekali lagi.
Sama juga, di sini sebagai tanda tingginya tingkat prestij seseorang, perbualan bahasa Melayu mereka akan bertukar menjadi i dan you untuk menggantikan kata aku dan kamu.
Sinetron are still there in Astro, even it’s getting less in ASTRO recently because they cut Astro Aruna with 24 hours show mainly indonesia’s sinetron program last year. I don’t know for what reason they stop Astro Aruna. For me, no wonder bahasa indonesia is known by M’sian through the sinetron, but it’s not so special since bahasa malaysia and bahasa indonesia come from the same root, and there was intense relationship between inhabitant of the archipelago since long time ago. What special is, our other neighbouring country, Australia. They put bahasa Indonesia as part of their curriculum. For your information many times Australian students and their teacher visiting Sekolah Indonesia Kuala Lumpur (elementary to secondary school operated under Indonesia Embassy at KL) to learn and practice more bahasa indonesia. Interesting isn’t it? Australians come to KL but their objective is to have better understanding bahasa indonesia and indonesian culture. That’s the fact. http://www.sekolahindonesia.edu.my/sik/australi_angklung.html
Tidak ada yang aneh kalau Australia belajar di Malaysia. Apa lagi kerana kedua-dua negara merupakan bekas tanah jajahan British (Commenwell British). Untuk pengetahuan, urusannya imigrasi untuk sesama negara anggota Commenwell British lebih mudah berbanding bukan negara anggota. (Saya kurang tahu kalau sesama negara anggota Commenwell Belanda). Lebih-lebih lagi Sekolah Indonesia Kuala Lumpur yang semua pelajarnya adalah warga Indonesia. Jadi mereka boleh mendapatkan keuntungan dua kali ganda, dapat belajar bahasa pada kualiti (kalau bukan lebih baik) pada biaya yang murah dengan urusan yang jauh lebih mudah. Oh ya, anda yang dari Indonesia juga boleh belajar bahasa apapun di kuala Lumpur mengikut keinginan anda. Bukankah ini juga tidak aneh?
Sebetulnya, warga Malaysia kenal bahasa Indonesia sama sebagaimana warga Indonesia kenal bahasa Malaysia. Banyak medium yang memperdengarkan kedua bahasa ini secara timbal-balik – komunikasi dua hala. Ia tidak datang melalui sinetron di TV semata-mata. Apa lagi sekarang zaman Internet, anda yang di Jayapura sekalipun dapat mendengarkan acara di TV Malaysia pada waktu yang sama seperti acaranya di Malaysia tanpa lewat sedikit pun.
Saat ini, memang banyak sinetron Indonesia diputar di Malaysia. Kalau tidak ada penawaran, tentu tidak ada permintaan. Untuk itu, anda harus berterima kasih kepada 2 juta TKI berdaftar dan berjuta-juta lagi TKI tidak berdaftar yang berkerja di Malaysia. Saya percaya kalau porsi warga Malaysia di Indonesia sama banyaknya seperti porsi Warga Indonesia di Malaysia, tentunya segala hal berbau Malaysia boleh anda temukan dengan mudah di sana. Sekali lagi hukum ekonomi permintaan dan penawaran teraplikasi.
Oh ya, sekarang ini sebahagian besar TKI di Malaysia menyekolahkan anak-anak mereka di sekolah-sekolah pemerintah di sini yang semuanya memakai bahasa Malaysia. Ini juga satu lagi prinsip timbal balik yang tidak anda sadari.
oh please, it seems like people arguing here. okay, first of all, yes i know lo and gue comes from the hokkian. second, i know about what happened to the TKI and their child. but, hey, admit it people, Bahasa Indonesia really is more vibrant than Malay. it has its creativity and the art. it adapt words from a lot of other languages as well, of course. from its root, malay, some english and arabic. and maybe more, idk. the thing is, Indonesian develop their language into something more beautiful.
anyways, every nation got their own language. Bahasa Indonesia just happen to attract more people to learn them, that’s it.
no need to argue people.. please, it is so last year.
for Ilzaf: ELO BISANYA CUMAN NGELES DOANG! [Malaysian typical] & I just want to tell you something: BAHASA ELO ANEH!!!