Existence of Bahasa
Indonesia in the future
moessQn
I remember sitting with my
sister and a number of high
school students at the home
of a young scholar who had
not long ago returned from
the Netherlands. According to
a fixed schedule the various
members of this club gave
little presentations on cultural
and linguistic topics every
month. This time it was the
turn of a secondary school
alumnus whom I shall call
Sarjono.
Sarjono spoke in Dutch, as was
the custom at Dutch oriented
schools. This man made the
point that the schedule of foreign
languages was terribly overloaded.
Dutch itself was already an imposed
foreign element, which weighted like a
very heavy block on us, Indonesians.
But on top of that we had three
other foreign languages: French, Ger
man and English, in that order.
The Dutch claimed that all of them
were necessary: French they called the
language of diplomacy, German the
medium for industry and English the
vehicle for trade and sports.
Ballast
'For us, however,' stressed Sarjono, 'all
this is ballast. We are a country sur-
Overwinteren a.d.
noordkust van Bali bij
'Mas' Bungalows
rounded by English speaking regions,
namely Australia, the Philippines,
Singapore, Malaya, Burma and India.
So we can make do with English for
purposes of diplomacy, industry as well
as trade and sports. Why should we
burden the poor students with all this
unnecessary luxury.'
A lively debate followed after his lectu
re. Some of the audience agreed with
the speaker that it would be much
better to throw French and German
overboard and just keep English. But a
few maintained that it would be too
bad to do away with so much invalu
able knowledge.
French they called the
language of diplomacy,
German the medium for
industry and
English the vehicle for
trade and sports
The young scholar who had just come
back from Holland moderately sided
with Sarjono and said that the Indies
were indeed quite different from the
Netherlands. After all, the Dutch were
a small nation which depended largely
on France, Germany and England
combined for their wealth. But we
Indonesians number almost sixty mil
lion (in 1939) and are not so dependent
on all these different states.
Subtitles
In 1945 French and German were
retained only for the time being.
Gradually, however, at the so called
SMAA (literature and social sciences
section of the secondary school), only
the German language was still taught,
presumably to facilitate the prospective
studies in medicine and pharmacy in
Germany and Switzerland. Dutch was
abolished all together as a medium of
instruction in 1952, so Dutch natio
nals teaching at the university had to
use English for their various subjects.
Many foreign movies were still presen
ted in the languages of their countries
of origin. Even in Hindi, German and
the like. Subtitles had to be provided
for the onlookers, either English or
Indonesian. This procedure is still
followed at the cinemas in the country.
With the coming of TV in 1962, how
ever, a new policy was introduced.
I had a chance to see the change occur
in shows of the two ancient Hindu
epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana.
In the first few months I heard the
Hindi language being used with Eng
lish subtitles.
I myself do not understand Hindi, but
I did recognize the name of certain
heroes in both epics, like Beem
(Bhima), Arjun (Arjuna), Yudhisteer
(Yudhistira) and Baldev (Baladewa).
These chopped-off forms struck me as
quite unusual, by the way, for they are
never used in wayang performances in
this country.
Dubbing
After a few months, however, I noticed
that the Hindi dialogues and narra
tions were beginning to give way to
Indonesian dubbing. So the more
familiair appellations of Bhima, Arjuna,
Yudhistira and Baladewa began to
appear again.
The same procedure is now being
followed with regard to the so called
Telenovellasusually stories of Latin-
American origin. As a matter of fact
the original language in these teleno
vellas is Spanish. But nowadays almost
not a single Spanish word is heard.
Everything has been dubbed in Indone
sian, which makes things much easier.
Non-English languages like French and
Arabic are only retained in Telecast of
courses offered in these languages.
For the American, British and other
movies with English texts, the old
procedure is adhered to of supplying
Indonesian subtitles.
So by and large, we see now Sarjono's
ideas being implemented. Besides our
national medium, Indonesian, we have
just one foreign language: English.
I sincerely hope Sarjono is still among
the living. If he is, he will smile and
say: 'What did I tell you, more than
55 years ago at the old house in
Djokjakarta?'
12
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