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Indonesian millenials struggle to speak in local IT terms
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Living in such a diverse country as Indonesia has its own challenges when it comes to language use. (Shutterstock/File)
“What is surel? I have never heard of that word before,” said 20-year-old college student and avid internet user Juan Putranto in Bandung, West Java, when asked about the Indonesian word for email.
As the country celebrated the historic moment when Indonesian youths affirmed their identity as Indonesians, known as Youth Pledge Day, which falls every Oct. 28, today’s youth — mostly digital natives — are struggling to speak the local equivalents of the foreign words that have become part of
their lives.
Juan is not alone in his confusion, as most Indonesians are more exposed to the English version of information technology (IT) terms instead of the Indonesian counterparts. Therefore, words like linimasa (timeline), tetikus (mouse) and daring (online) seem peculiar to them.
A recent university graduate, Danang Permadi, 24, said he actually knew about the word daring, but he was more familiar with “online” because he used the English translation more regularly.
“No one has ever used daring among my peers, family and even at university. I only know the word from randomly browsing the internet,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Indonesian youths are also unfamiliar with Indonesian IT words like salin dan tempel (copy and paste), serambi (platform), peramban (browser), peladen (server), lebar pita (bandwidth), narablog (blogger) and unduh (download).
The use of the Indonesian language by young people is well specified in the Sumpah Pemuda (Youth Pledge), the 88th anniversary of which fell on Friday. One of the verses of the pledge reads “We, Indonesian youths, will carry high our national language, Bahasa Indonesia.”
But as the world becomes more globalized and new words are coined to catch up with new technologies, are there really Indonesian youths out there who would say “lebar pita” instead of bandwidth?
The government has done its job in promoting the use of the Indonesian language on a daily basis through the Language Development and Training Agency under the Culture and Education Ministry.
The agency periodically publishes the Indonesian Language Dictionary (KBBI), available in book and online versions, and its representatives are present in 30 provinces across the country.
But any efforts to convince youths to use their mother language appear insufficient as they obtain most of their information from the internet, where English is the dominant language, University of Indonesia linguist Mohammad Umar Muslim told The Jakarta Post.
“Language is constantly evolving. The internet has made Indonesian youths see foreign languages as more prestigious than their mother language. The more popular a foreign word is among youths, the harder it is for young people to use its Indonesian version,” Umar said on Friday.
Media researcher Ignatius Haryanto reaffirmed the linguist’s view. “As technology advances, people get more information as well as new words. Sometimes words are too technical, making them hard to be translated into Indonesian,” he said.
Haryanto added the media should play a role in promoting the Indonesian language, including the IT terms coined by linguists.
“The media should also use proper Indonesian,” he said. (adt)
