SUNDANESE LANGUAGE SURVIVAL AMONG INDONESIAN DIASPORA FAMILIES IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Abstract

Most migrant families living anywhere in the world, are concerned with maintaining their ethnic language, in order to sustain a sense of belonging to the country of their origin and enable extended family harmony. This study explores the survival of Sundanese language among eight Indonesian families of West Java origin (Sundanese speakers) living permanently in Melbourne, Australia. Most of these families migrated to Australia in the 1950s as Colombo Plan scholars and unskilled labourers. Semi-structured interviews and home observations showed that, despite believing in the importance of Sundanese language in their diasporic life, speaking Sundanese is the only practice that most of the participating parents, can do to maintain their language, alongside Bahasa Indonesia and English, to show they belong to the Sundanese culture. However, Sundanese language levels of politeness limit its use among their Australia-born second generation, making this ethnic language unlikely to survive. The young people only understand and copy a few routine words of greetings and short instructions. The study also suggests that the parents needed to be accommodative in order to maintain the Sundanese language by combining it with English and Bahasa Indonesia. Key words: Sundanese language maintenance, Indonesian diaspora, parental advice and values