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Jakarta Post

Urban Chat: Mother tongue? Whose mother?

Since I was a kid I often questioned the accuracy of the term “mother tongue”

Lynda Ibrahim (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, October 11, 2013

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Urban Chat: Mother tongue? Whose mother?

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ince I was a kid I often questioned the accuracy of the term '€œmother tongue'€. If it was meant to refer to the language a person was raised in (usually coming from the parents), I thought it was rather unfair that the father wasn'€™t mentioned. As fathers are nowadays expected to play a more prominent role in raising children, even to the point where divorced dads who fail to pay child support can end up in jail, the '€œmother tongue'€ moniker seems anachronistic.

But this omission pales in comparison to an emerging phenomenon occurring in Indonesian metropolises, and that The New York Times wrote about earlier this week: Some Indonesian children can'€™t speak Indonesian.   

Born to full-blooded Indonesian parents and raised solely in Indonesia, these kids learn language mainly from playgroups and daycare, which nowadays children may start as early as nine months old. Many well-facilitated playgroups conduct sessions in English, and when these tykes later get enrolled in private schools, English gets reinforced as their main language. These schools often ask parents to practice English with their children at home. Assuming these kids only play with their also English-speaking schoolmates, the only figures they can speak Indonesian to on a daily basis are the help '€” and perhaps the grandparents too, on weekends.

Some culture warriors have bemoaned this phenomenon as another status-fueled societal ill connected to the rise of the Indonesian middle class. Oh, yawn. I'€™m more interested in meeting these parents whose children can'€™t speak their country'€™s official language. Who are they really?

Most of them are, it turns out, quite similar. Let'€™s call them Yanto and Yanti, who grew up learning English in the outdated, ineffective manner used by the 1980s and 1990s Indonesian curriculums, later finding themselves sorely disadvantaged as they competed with fluent-English-speaking Malaysians for jobs in multinational companies or for higher-ed scholarships.

Now that Yanto and Yanti'€™s hard-earned income can afford private schooling with an emphasis on English, can you blame them for wanting their kids to have the linguistic advantage they did not? Beyond the status sometimes gained from showing off their English-proficient toddler to relatives and neighbors, these parents are out to provide their children with life tools.

The only problem is, these Yantos and Yantis forget to squeeze in sufficient time to speak Indonesian with their kids, or, as happens in some cases, they don'€™t realize that nobody is teaching their kids the mother (and father) tongue. Indeed, it'€™s a problem that needs to be effectively addressed, yet no need to raise pitchforks demanding the shutdown of schools offering learning in English.

In fact, the entire English curriculum for public schools needs to be revolutionized to ensure all Indonesian children receive satisfactory lessons and practices. The world is becoming more globalized and Indonesian is only spoken in Indonesia, so yes, one needs good command of English to thrive on the global stage. Heck, even the Chinese, driven by the world'€™s biggest population and a full-throttle economy, are arming their next generation with good English.      

So then what about the Yantos and Yantis who can'€™t afford proper English education for their kids? As I found out, it'€™s not the end of the world. My parents could only afford to enroll me in public schools, but Mom diligently taught me English starting when I was three, using whatever English books and magazines she could find and blaring the BBC Australia radio show every morning (the reason '€œWaltzing Matilda'€ is forever imprinted on my brain).

When I started high school Dad enrolled me in an English course and started subscribing to an English-language newspaper '€” although I only read the cartoons and '€œWho'€™s Who'€ for the first year. I might'€™ve ended up speaking it more fluently than they do, but I absolutely owe my English proficiency to my parents'€™ almost militant teaching. If they could do it, any parent can. It'€™s a choice.

I have two friends who were both born in Indonesia and had foreign parents. They attended Jakarta International School followed by a slew of American schools, and returned to Indonesia as adults. One speaks Indonesian flawlessly. The other '€” even now in her seventh year of repatriation '€” still has great difficulty with the language. The only difference between the two is that the former had an Indonesian parent who persistently spoke Indonesian to her through the years.

Again, it'€™s a choice. Every parent has a right to enroll their children in schools that teach foreign language, and yet they should also find the time to speak Indonesian with their kids. English is undoubtedly the gateway to the world, but before they roam the globe children need an anchor, a root to give them balance. And that'€™s what Indonesian language should be for them '€” or soon it will become someone else'€™s mother'€™s tongue.

Lynda Ibrahim is a Jakarta-based writer and consultant with a penchant for purple, pussycats and pop culture.

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