English VS Bahasa VS Local Languages: The Happening Diglossic Situation

While other people trying quite hard to learn English, I am here crying because I do not have the ability to speak local languages that Indonesia had. 

As these days language become a popular issue, I will try to discuss my anxiety and how to respond to this. 

My mother came from Madiun and my father came from Purwokerto which located in somewhere on Java island. My mother had the ability to speak Javanese because she was using Javanese at home, with all her brothers and sisters, at the time she was in her childhood. Today, she is also using Javanese with her sisters. However, this is not happening in my father. He was born and grew up in Jakarta. He already uses Bahasa to talk to his family so that makes him not an active speaker of Javanese language but still understands if other people talked in Javanese.

I and my brother was born and grew up in Jakarta. And from the first time I am able to speak, I only use Bahasa all the time, both at home and school. Once in awhile my mother using Javanese to talk about her anger or other things. But now, it is gradually decreasing. My mother does not using Javanese anymore even though she is in her anger.

English has become a lingua franca in many places, all over the world.

Therefore, people nowadays are (too) busy worrying their ability (am I rude?) to use English, especially the people who came from English-is-not-their-national-language including Indonesia. 

Jakarta as the capital city of Indonesia has been the most popularized city which means people from another region, with the various culture background, melted in one spot. With various culture background, obviously, people uses Bahasa as the medium to communicate with other people. For example, school, work, and in governmental activities. Other than Bahasa, English also take big parts of our life nowadays.

I have been living in Jakarta since my whole life. And I would say that local languages being immersed on low-class-language stigmatized. Some of these reasons I have mentioned above may cause the situation I will explain below. 

By seeing this situation, I might probably say that a diglossic situation is happening. Wardaugh says a diglossic situation in a society is when it has two distinct codes which show clear functional separation (Wardaugh, p. 89). Holmes says, one language regarded as a low variety (L) and the other one regarded as a high variety (H) and no one uses the H variety in everyday conversation (Holmes, p. 27). In Jakarta, or more generally Indonesia, local languages play a role as everyday language (L): when you talk to your family or close friends, meanwhile Bahasa (and/or English) play a role as a formal language (H): when you talk to your boss at your office, or when you're doing your academic presentation in school. 

Honestly, I envy for whoever able to speak an local language.

It also might possibly happen because the people who use local language doing a low-class occupation, such as babysitter, servant, and beggars while the people who use Bahasa, doing a mid-average class occupation such as employee, teachers, etc. With the situation I explained before, it is clear enough why local language being immersed as a low-class identifier. Furthermore, people nowadays attune to using English in their everyday life (I specifically talking about Indonesian people live in Jakarta). 

I am not naive. I also worry about my ability for using English because it is the requirements even for continue study in local. In my opinion, it is just a shame for us because it seems we start to leave our native languages. English is important for future life, however, indigenous languages are way more important.

To respond this situation, I have some suggestion: instead of always using English or/and Bahasa in every academic paper, why don't use local languages to write an academic paper (oh, I know it is contradictory) once in a while? If it's not an academic paper, maybe on your personal blog would be great too.

Oh, am I too hyperbolic?

#SaveLocalLanguages