A linguist in Jambi has criticized the rampant use of "cliches" or gobbledygook among government officials and political institutions, saying that such use comes from illiteracy.

Gobbledygook does not make sense and sometimes it does not have roots in the local language, said Natal P. Sitanggang, a linguist from the Jambi Language Agency, on Thursday.

"Many people use words that prompt people to escape reality," he said.

Natal said this came from illiteracy of both the language user and listener, who believed the use of such language was normal.

He shared an example of the use of the phrase "budaya adi luhung", which is rooted in ancient Javanese language. The phrase can be loosely translated to "high order culture". He observed that officials had often used the phrase in public events and used it incorrectly.

If the officials were consistent with their own jargon of high culture, they should have used Jambi's own elite language, called "seloko", instead of using colloquial language.

Some Indonesian officials are known to deliver long speeches with jargon, sometimes taken from foreign languages. Some examples are "sinkronisasi"and "harmonisasi" to describe coordination between different institutions and "sosialisasi" for information distribution.

Gobbledygook was not effective communication, he went on, but the public did not realize it.

He also lamented the fact that Jambi officials had made use of foreign gobbledygook without really knowing the meaning, while abandoning local languages. (evi)