National Language Ability: A Sociolinguistic Survey in East Java, Indonesia

Abstract

The development of the Indonesian national language has been exemplary. Unlike the creation of a national language in other developing countries, as in Malaysia, the Philippines, and India, the choice has not become a political issue. In Indonesia, no sector of society has sought to promote other local or foreign languages as the national language. In 1962, Takdir Alisjahbana outlined the initial development of Indonesian from Malay, the trade language of the archipelago from the first century AD. and the language of the Sriwijaya Empire (A.D. 700–1200) through the period of rising nationalism to independence. A few of the important steps in this process were: the declaration of Indonesian as the national language by the National Youth Congress in 1928; the flourishing of a national and a Chinese press from the 1920s onward, both of which used the Malay language; the promotion of literary works by the monthly journal, Pudjangga Baru, from 1933 onward; and the standardizing effect of the Indonesian Language Commission established in 1942. These events successfully established the first stage or emergence of the national language.