LOCAL LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA: LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE OR LANGUAGE SHIFT? Review

Title : LOCAL LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA: LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE OR LANGUAGE SHIFT?
 Author :  Maya Ravindranath
Journal : Linguistik Indonesia Agustus 2014, 131-148
 Publication : August 2014
Abstract : The choice and subsequent development of Bahasa Indonesia as the national language following the founding of the Republic of Indonesia in 1945 is widely cited as a great success story in language planning. With the increased use of Indonesian—both formal (bahasa resmi) and informal (bahasa sehari-hari)—in all facets of daily life, the question arises as to whether Indonesia will continue as a highly multilingual society or move toward monolingualism. We consider this issue from the perspectives of research on language policy, language endangerment, and language ideologies. As a case study, we consider current trends and shifts in the use of Javanese by younger speakers as influenced by the increased use of Indonesian. As Indonesian takes over in more and more domains of communication and intergenerational transmission of Javanese breaks down, we are led to conclude that even a language with over 80 million speakers can be at risk, a trend that has serious implications for all of the local languages of Indonesia.
Goals : to consider current trends and shifts in the use of Javanese by younger speakers as influenced by the increased use of Indonesian. As Indonesian takes over in more and more domains of communication and intergenerational transmission of Javanese breaks down, we are led to conclude that even a language with over 80 million speakers can be at risk, a trend that has serious implications for all of the local languages
Problems : current trends and shifts in the use of Javanese by younger speakers as influenced by the increased use of Indonesian
Theories : Language shift, Indonesian, language policy
Method : research
Findings & Conclusion :

It is generally agreed that Indonesian as a national language is a successful example of language planning and language standardization in the interest of nation building. Grimes (1996:724) asks: “Should Indonesian be a force for unity at the expense of the diversity of existing languages and cultures, or should national unity be built on a foundation that accommodates and appreciates ethnolinguistic diversity?” The evidence from Javanese underscores his implication that there is a trade off between the success of a national language and vitality of local vernaculars. Anderbeck (2012), in discussing Gorontalo, a language with one million speakers, asks the question of whether languages with large speaker populations can be “too big to fail”.
The evidence from Javanese suggests that size alone will not lead to language maintenance. Languages with large speaker populations have the advantage of a more heterogenous speaker population, and the likelihood that shifts in language dynamics will not lead as quickly to an irreversible outcome. In addition, languages with large speaker populations aremore likely to be written, and already  have historical records and documentation. Nevertheless, rapid language shift of the type that we discuss above will have a profound impact. Large languages, even one such as Javanese with 84 million speakers, are at risk of greatly reduced numbers of fluent speakers and loss of the full richness of linguistic knowledge and tradition, although there may be many ways in which Javanese continues to be vital and integral to the linguistic ecology (as highlighted by Musgrave n.d., Goebel 2005, Zentz 2012, and others).
Language is not a monolithic entity; rather it resides in a system of linguistic and social ecology (in the sense discussed by Mufwene 2012). The impact of shifts in patterns of use may be non-uniform across facets of the language, as in the case of Krama vs. Ngoko, or might disproportionately affect certain segments of the population, such as the more rapid patterns of shift seen in middle class women. At the same time, different languages already serve distinct social and cultural functions.
As pointed out by Zentz (2012), local, national, and global languages offer different opportunities linguistically and socially. The situation of language endangerment worldwide has demonstrated the critical importance of language documentation. What the complexity of the Javanese situation highlights is the need not only for documentation, but also for studies that address language use and language attitudes. Fuller study of local patterns of language use will help us to understand the complex factors that contribute to language vitality. Ideally such studies will be able to both document the rate of change by looking at generational differences in language use patterns, as well as examine the factors that contribute to change.
We are undertaking two projects to contribute to these goals. In the first, Bahasa Kita, we have developed a language use questionnaire for use throughout Indonesia. This questionnaire (Cohn et al. 2013,Kuesioner Penggunaan Bahasa Sehari-hari)buildson previous questionnaires that have been developed for use in Indonesia and elsewhere (most notably the Middle Indonesia Project conducted by Errington and colleagueswith a questionnaire developed byTadmor.)5 It includes questions about personal background, including the geographic, ethnic, religious, educational and linguistic background of the respondent, their parents, their grandparents, and their spouse and children.
It also asks about their level of mastery of different languages, their use of technology, and their language use in 34 different domains. Finally, we include 14 attitude questions with a 5-point response scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The questionnaire offers a way to gain a broad overview and look at conditioning factors, providing connections between individual choices and community level decisions. The questionnaire can be completed online or in hard copy and is available at http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/jakarta/kuesioner.php. An English version of the questionnaire is also available if scholars would like to use it in other linguistic settings. In our current project, we are using the questionnaire to compare patterns of language use in several local languages of Indonesia with speaking populations over a million people.
We are using preliminary results to address key questions about language shift scenarios (as reported in Cohn et al. 2014) and at the same time working to develop models of the multiple factorsthatcontribute to scenarios of language change. The second project, the Basa Urang Proyek, is a more in-depth case study of the use of Indonesian and Sundanese in West Java. Sundanese is the 3rd most widely spoken local language (after Javanese and local varieties of Malay if these are pooled together), with an estimated speaking population of 34 million speakers.
Like Javanese, Sundanese is a high prestige, written language spoken by a clearly defined ethnic group with a large speaker population. Sundanese has received comparatively less attention in the literature (although see Sobarna 2010 and Moriyama 2012 on increasing use of Indonesian at the expense of Sundanese in Bandung; and, Sobarna et al. 1997 and Djajasudarma 1994 on the use of colloquial Indonesian in Sundanese communities). In this project, we aim to consider the SundaneseIndonesian contact situation more closely, using questionnaires and interviews in West Javanese communities to examine the interplay of sociolinguistic background, language use and language attitudesin urban and rural Sundanese communities.We look forward to reporting on the results from these studies and welcome colleagues to join in using the methodologies, questionnaire, and interview materials for other case studies.