LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT IN INDONESIA

Michael C. Ewing

Abstract


In Indonesia, language endangerment is primarily related to language shift. Data show that the most important symptoms of language shift and of the vitality of a language are number and quality of the domains in which it is used and transmitted. The second crucial symptom of language endangerment is the loss of transmission from one generation to the next. This is what is now being seen in many communities across Indonesia where children are no longer acquiring their parents’ language. There are two general endangerment scenarios that have occurred in Indonesia. The first is the immigration scenario in which members of another speech community from outside the area move in and due to economic and political advantage essentially ‘take over’ a local speech community, imposing their own language. The second is the emigration scenario in which members of a local speech community temporarily migrate outside of the community for education or work, and on returning bring the dominant language from outside into the community. Finally, we can now find in many parts of Indonesia that social changes including economic, educational, and political contexts, promote a shift from local to dominant language.

Keywords


Language endangerment, language shift, immigration and emigration scenarios, dominant language.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Adelaar, A. (2010). Language documentation in the west Austronesian world and Vanuatu: an overview. In Margaret Florey (ed), Endangered languages of Austronesia, 12-44. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anwar, K. (1990). Indonesian: the development and use of a national language. Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press.

Cameron, D. (2003). Gender issues in language change. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23: 187-201.

Crystal, D. (2000). Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dorian, N. (1981). Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press.

Ewing, M. C. (2005). Grammar and inference in conversation: identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ewing, M. C. (2010). Agentive alignment in Central Maluku languages, in Michael C. Ewing and Marian Klamer (eds.) East Nusantara: Typological and Areal Analyses, 119-141. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Fishman, J. A. (2001). Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift, revisited: a 21st century perspective. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Florey, M. (2005). Overview: the languages of Central Maluku. S. Musgrave (ed.), Language Contact, Hybrids and New Varieties: Emergent Possessive Constructions. (Special issue of) Monash University Linguistic Papers, 4.1-2.

Florey, M. (2006). Assessing the vitality of endangered languages in Central Maluku. Paper presented at tehe 10th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, the Philippines.

Florey, M. (2009). Sustaining indigenous languages and indigenous knowledge: developing community training approaches for the 21st century. In P. Bates, M. Chiba, S. Kube & D. Nakashima (eds), Learning and Knowing in Indigenous Societies Today, 24-37. Paris: UNESCO.

Florey, M. and Ewing, M.C. (2010). “Political acts and language revitalisation: community and state in Maluku.” Gunter Senft (ed) Endangered Austronesian and Australian Aboriginal language: essays on language documentation, archiving and revitalization, 155-173. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Hajak, J. (2006). On the edge of the Pacific: Indonesia and East Timor. In Denis Cunningham, D. E. Ingram and Kenneth Sumbuk (eds), Language Diversity in the Pacific: Endangerment and Survival, 212-230. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Himmelmann, N.P. (2010). Language endangerment scenarios: a case study from northern Central Sulawesi. In Margaret Florey (ed), Endangered languages of Austronesia, 45-72. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

King, M., Smith, A., & Gracey, M. (2009). Indigenous health part 2: the underlying causes of the health gap. Lancet 374: 76–85.

Krauss, M. (1992). The world’s languages in crisis. Language 68: 6-10.

Kurniasih, Y.K. (2005). Gender, class and language preference: a case study in Yogyakarta. In Keith Allan (ed), Selected Papers from the 2005 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://alsasn.server322.com/proceedings/als2005/kurniasih-gender.pdf.

Lewis, M. P., Gary F.S, & Fennig, C. D. (eds). (2014). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.

Maffi, L. (2001). Linking language and environment: A coevolutionary perspective. In C. L. Crumley (ed), New Directions in Anthropology and Environment: Intersections, 24–48. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.

Musgrave, S. and Ewing, M.C. (2006). Language and religion: a case study of two Ambonese communities. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 179: 179–194.

O’Shannessy, Carmel. 2011. Language contact and change in endangered languages. In PeterAustin and Julia Sallabank (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Language Endangerment, 78-99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Romaine, S. (2007). Preserving Endangered Languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 1.1-2: 115–132.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic Genocide in Education – or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Smith-Hefner, N. (2009). Language shift, gender, and ideologies of modernity in Central Java, Indonesia. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 19.1: 57–77.

Sneddon, J. N. (2003). The Indonesian language: its history and role in modern society. Sydney: UNSW Press.

Tucker, I. (2001). Languages of Indonesia. Jakarta: Summer Institute of Linguistics International, Indonesia Branch.

Turin, M. (2005). Language endangerment and linguistic rights in the Himalayas: a case study from Nepal. Mountain Research and Development 25.1:4-9.

Zent, S. (2001). Acculturation and ethnobotanical knowledge loss among the Piaroa of Venezuela: demonstration of a quantitative method for the empirical study of TEK change, in L. Maffi (ed.) On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge and the Environment, 190–211. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/ije.v8i1.1764

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2016 Michael C. Ewing



Lisensi Creative Commons
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.