July 2005

The evolution of Indonesian and Malay

by Rajan Rishyakaran

 

  

 

 
I found your site via Res Publica, and through that found that article. I think you are generalizing quite a bit when you said,

"Malaysia's emotional needs are different. First of all, the Malays form only a slight majority (if one excludes the native peoples of Borneo) in their own country. There is a need for reaffirmation of their identity against the older civilisational legacies that the Chinese and Indian communities in Malaysia can boast of. Thus, there is a tendency to over-romanticise Malacca for their origins and a tendency to create a picture of a bigger Malay world, encompassing all of Indonesia as well."  

Quite on the contrary, it is the Malaysian constitution that severely limited the definition of a Malay to someone that not only speaks Malay but someone who practices Islam. This was at tandem with the general use of the word at that time, but it was inserted to appease UMNO.

Javanese can be called Malay in the older, as you noted, 19-century sense of the word - in the same manner Punjabis and Bengalis can be considered the same race even though there is significant differences in culture and language. In any case, race is an unscientific fiction, but anthropologically, Javanese is in the Western Malayo-Polynesian Sundik family - distant, but with many grammatical similarities, especially between the higher form of Javanese (Krama) with the higher, royal form of Malay (bahasa klasik). 

"The difficulties encountered were various. They included differences in spelling, and the use of unfamiliar acronyms and abbreviations and loan words from other languages used to mean something quite different."

There are many reasons for that. For one, increasingly it is a trend, so to speak, to use as much English loan words as possible, even though there is a existing alternative (for example, individu instead of kendiri or sendiri). More so, Malaysian Malay evolved significantly in comparison with Indonesian Malay due to its greater flexibility (imposed tatabahasa rules by Pusat Bahasa dan Terjemahan on Indonesian, for example, are considerably more rigid than in Malaysia by Dewan Bahasa dan Pusaka).

 
Foreword by Yawning Bread

Rajan Rishyakaran wrote in response to the article Who is Malay.

He dissents from some of my comments and added a whole level of learned detail to support his.

I'm glad to be able to share his points with other readers.

The passages in italics were quoted from my original article, to which he responded.

Some parts of what Rajan wrote are marked as "addendum"; they were additional remarks he sent in a few days after the first email.

 
For that reason, if you take literature from the 40's and 30's, it would be more intelligible to Indonesians than to Malaysians. In the past century or so, quite a number of terms within the geographical boundaries of Malaya itself have changed - quite simply, for example, today's ibu pejabat (headquarters) was in the early 20th century, pejabat ibu; (in today's Indonesia kantor pusat, pejabat pusat). [See pink box alongside] More so, a lot of Dutch loan words are used popularly in Indonesia that are alien to the British-dominated side of the Malay Archipelago - for example, universiti vs. universitas (from university and universiteit respectively), lesen memandu vs. ribewis (from driving license and rijbewijs respectively), bas vs. bis (bus and the Dutch pronounciation of it respectively). It is Malaysians, rather than Indonesians, that seem more resistant in standardizing or harmonizing terms - mainly because in Malaysia, Indonesian is seen as culturally inferior. 

In addition to that, Indonesian newspapers used, in significant amounts, a number of words and phrases alien to non-Javanese. If newspapers follow the rigid guidelines set by Pusat Bahasa, it would be more intelligible to Malaysians. In the same manner, Kelante and Yawi is unintelligible, especially in writing, to most Malay Malaysians though they themselves consider theirself to be Malay. Though Kelante is closer to standard Malay than Javanese, that point is still valid. 

"The result of this attitude is that the Indonesians feel little need to synchronise their language with Malaysia and Brunei, whereas the Malaysians are keener to coordinate the evolution of the language with the Indonesians." 

It is quite hard to believe that Indonesians were indifferent towards standardizing between Malaysian and Indonesian - in 1972, while Malaysia took modest spelling and grammatical reforms, Indonesia undertook major reforms of the spelling. Before 1972, in Malaysia, cucu was chuchu, while in Indonesia, it was tjoetjoe. It is quite easy to see which made the bigger switch. Furthermore, Malaysia just a few years back unilaterally ended the requirement of baku pronounciations in schools and on TV, while Indonesia and Brunei still retains that regulation. Even on spelling, Malaysia deviated from the 1972 guidelines while Indonesia sticked to it - otomobil instead of automobil in Malaysia, or petroliam instead of petroleum in Malaysia. 

In fact, on the same note, a pan-Malay nation is significantly more popular in Indonesia than in Malaysia - the post-WW1 "Indonesia Raya" concept which included Malaya was significantly more popular in Indonesia, especially amongst nationalist circles in Java in lieu of their Majapahit legacy than in Malaya itself. In fact at that time, most Malays prefered being identified by their states like Negeri Sembilan and Johor and were more nationalistic towards it (the British failed spectacularly to get rid of state entities in the Malayan Union). 

While the comparison between American and British English doesn't seem apt (I prefer between Texan English and Irish English) - spoken Indonesian is actually quite intelligible to Malaysians. Especially considering a large number of maids and labourers in Malaysia are Indonesians that barely or can't speak English, communication doesn't seem to be that much of an insurmountable challenge. And today, there is a significant amount of Malaysian parents sending their children to Indonesian universities to study medicine, even though it is in Indonesian - not English. I know a close friend studying in Universitas Gadjah Mada. After getting used to the different terminology, it was smooth-sailing from then.   

 

Addendum by Rajan R:

ibu pejabat have been pejabat ibu a century ago in Malaya, but never kantor (a Javanese loan word) ibu or pejabat pusat, and not kantor pusat. And the reason why Indonesian and Malaysian Malay have been going even further apart is more political in nature than cultural - until recently, for example, Malaysian Malay books are banned in Indonesia and likewise Indonesian broadcasts in Malaysia. But with American and British English - cultural exchanges between the two countries are rift and common - for example, Hollywood movies are popular in UK while British books likewise is popular in America. Thus British slang becomes less and less of use.

  

 
Addendum by Rajan R:

Another thing I need to mention is that Bahasa Indonesia evolved in the same manner Singlish did because of the large number of ethnic groups using the language. Bahasa Malaysia also evolved in the same manner. Just that in both countries the racial and linguistic composition of both countries are very different (Malaysia has a large Chinese and Indian population, Indonesia's Chinese population is very small and its Indian population is statistically negliable, while there are very little first- and second-generation Javanese, Madurese and the likes in Malaysia). Singlish is nearly unintelligible to, say, an American audience - take some article from Talking Cock and give a American to read it, he would understand less than a Malaysian reading something similar from Indonesia. 
 
Though that does drives home the fact that Indonesian and Malaysian Malay has more difference between American and British English... For Americans and a slightly lesser degree, Brits, their English is not a political issue as it is in Malaysia and Indonesia, and it is not reflective on its nationalism (You see frequently American official websites being billingual in English and Spanish - but never would you see a similar website in Indonesia in Javanese and Indonesian).  

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