I looked at the article titled "Bahasa Indonesia is immature" (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 5, p. 4) hoping for an interesting read, as I do think that Bahasa Indonesia would benefit from a better language planning policy and the introduction of a well-developed and widely used style guide.
The deterioration in the way our language is used in the local media is worrying and I think it is partly caused by the lack of such a guide. That Hendropriyono had to resort to citing a number of online dictionaries before the KBBI (the Great Indonesian Dictionary) serves as an example of its lack of authority as a reference.
However, I have to agree that the article does make a showy attempt at being well researched, especially for an opinion piece, but it failed miserably when trying to link the research to the conclusion the writer tried to make.
Out of curiosity (and not having access to either the KBBI or the English-Indonesian dictionary quoted in the article), I visited the three online dictionaries mentioned to search for "Czech Republic." I noted that only dicts.info (which is not an exclusively English-Indonesian) dictionary translated "Czech Republic" into Ceko.
Sederet.com split the translation into "Czech - kb. Bahasa Ceko, a C. seorang Ceko, the C. language bahasa Ceko," and "republic - republik" and xamus.com does not seem to be a functioning online dictionary.
I hardly think that the inconsistencies found in online dictionaries can serve as supporting evidence of the "immaturity" of the Indonesian language, rather than that of online dictionaries.
I have to question as well the relevance of some of the pieces of information thrown into the article. What was the benefit, for example, of mentioning that the feminine form of Cesk* Republika means that Cesk* cannot stand alone? Especially after noting that a number of languages, including English, use both the long and short (without "Republic") form.
The following baffled me even more: " ... the writing of Republik Ceska in Bahasa Indonesia is confusing because it consists of half Bahasa Indonesia and half Czech. The word Republik is Indonesian and Ceska is Czech (or Cestina)."
How does this support your argument of the underdeveloped state of Bahasa Indonesia? Especially, as you noted when comparing the way Cesk* Republika is handled by other languages, when English, Italian and Spanish all use the local word for republic paired with a localized version of Cesk*?
However, I hope this does turn into an active debate and Hendropriyono would like to rejoin the discussion that he must think is an important one to have. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Dita N.
Jakarta
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