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Malay oral folklore at risk of disappearing in Riau Islands, official says
Malay oral folklore in Riau Islands is at risk of disappearing, in large part due to the population who know the oral tradition having reached advanced age, and urgent steps must be taken to preserve the tradition, a Riau Islands Language Agency official said.
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Students of SD 010 Batam Kota state elementary school in Batam, Riau Islands, attend in-class learning on Jan. 10. An official from the province has said that Malay oral folklore is at risk of disappearing, with those who know the tradition having reached old age. (Antara/Teguh Prihatna)
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alay oral folklore in Riau Islands is at risk of disappearing, in large part due to the population who know the oral tradition having reached advanced age, and urgent steps must be taken to preserve the tradition, a Riau Islands Language Agency official said.
Agency head Asep said the number of Malay oral folklorists in Riau Islands had been declining, pointing out, for example, that there were only two oral folklorists left in Lingga regency, both of whom were over 60 years old. Meanwhile, the oral tradition in Natuna Islands had almost entirely vanished.
“Revitalizing the oral tradition of Malay [in Riau Islands] is an urgent [matter],” said Asep in Batam on Feb. 21.
In a bid to preserve local languages across the archipelago, the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry has launched an initiative in 12 provinces to revitalize 38 local languages. The initiative encourages teachers as well as local communities to preserve their local languages.
The selected provinces are North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, North Maluku, Maluku, South Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Central Java, West Java, Bali and Papua.
Asep said the exclusion of the Riau Islands’ province from the initiative was because the Malay language, which is the mother tongue of the area, was still deemed not at risk of disappearing, particularly as some parts of the language were later incorporated into Bahasa Indonesia – the official language of the country.
Before Indonesia’s independence, the Malay language, which was native to the Malay people in parts of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, was the common language of trade in the region now known as Indonesia and Malaysia.
