Abstract
This study aims to investigate parents� language ideology and family language policy (FLP) among Acehnese families that impact on language shift and language maintenance of Acehnese as a heritage language. The participants of the study were 10 female parents from one of the suburbs in Lhokseumawe City, who have young children from 2 years to 15 years old. The study employed a descriptive qualitative method. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The result of the study shows that the majority of parents� belief that Indonesian is significant for their children's education, has resulted in parents prioritizing Indonesian for their children as the dominant language to speak at home. Furthermore, the family language policy adopted by parents has an impact on language shift among Acehnese children to the Indonesian language. �Parents are reluctant to speak Acehnese to their children as a mother tongue and tend to abandon their heritage language. There are two significant points that are lost due to the consequence of parents� belief and there the family language policy to choose only Indonesian as a mother tongue to their children; first, it has led their children to grow as monolingual people that somehow is a big loss for the Acehnese children in order to gain various benefits culturally, cognitively, and communicatively from being bilinguals; second, Acehnese is under serious threat as Acehnese children ability in speaking their heritage language keep decreasing. Thus, strong efforts need to be done by all parties for Acehnese language preservation as a part of the unique identity of the Acehnese people.
Highlights
The regulation of the 1945 constitution stipulated that the State’s official language is Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language)
The status of the Indonesian language as the official language at the educational level has resulted in the dominant use of Indonesian in almost all domains
The policy that requires Indonesian as a medium of instruction from basic school to university level has given the consequences that Acehnese parents are reluctant to speak their vernacular language to the children at home because they believe that it causes detrimental consequences for their children when school age
Summary
The regulation of the 1945 constitution stipulated that the State’s official language is Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) This policy has contributed a negative effect on the existence of indigenous languages in Indonesia. This language planning policy which regulates Bahasa Indonesia as a means of communication at all school levels has caused the Indonesian people to shift their language to the Indonesian language Arka adds that Indonesian as the official language at all educational levels has exacerbated the existence of local languages, for the local languages with minority speakers. Javanese Language for example has been available in google search machine
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