Just an Ordinadry Posts Talking about Bahasa Indonesia Nowadays

Recently, I just don't know what to do with all the thoughts that pass by. Usually, I will write away everything that passes me by.

There is something I'm worried about.

Here's the thing.

I love writing. When I write, it releases all the things I should release, that only possible through writing. I do make a living by writing some articles, and I do love it. Sometimes I need to put some keywords, to fulfill the SEO.  The keywords I have to put is in English even though the articles in Bahasa.

You know it, right?

I mean, I wish I could put all the keywords in Bahasa because the keywords in English has the equivalent meaning in Bahasa. So why should I put the keywords in English?

Yeah, it is for the sake of quantity of reader. If you put the keyword, you'll get the reader. If you got a lot of readers, you've got all you need!

But let's talk about another thing.

I positioned myself as Indonesian who writes articles in Bahasa and facing the reality that Bahasa still on its development process (particularly on words) to gathering and creating many new words in different areas.

Let's break down the insecurities below.

Everything's in English

It is said that English become globally used by everyone, everywhere, every time. It also happens in Indonesia. Bahasa, the national language of Indonesia, is not-so-new-baby born as a national language. However, Bahasa had to struggle to maintain the identity of Indonesia through Bahasa. But at the same time can't refuse or avoid any word-borrowing (especially from English) because we needed to!

Now I have a condition. I'm starting to have the English-word references. I'm not saying that I always have those condition. But, isn't it a signal for something?

And it brings us to the second insecurities.

Time spinning fast and Bahasa always try to catch on.

The domination of English become so real. We tend to have some English references (than Bahasa references). It turns out many English words are way more popular than Bahasa.

And it just happened recently.

Here's the situation. Recently, the English terms download are getting so popular and its use is rapidly increasing. However, Bahasa tries to create a new term which was unduh to the substitution of the English term, download.

Because of the situation I have explained before, unduh takes more time to get the popularity and to actually be used in the real life.

This leads us to the last insecurities.

The Struggle to make Bahasa popular in Indonesia itself

So it is clear that English terms are more popular than Bahasa terms, in the place where Bahasa is the native language of the people and not considering English as a second language. So how to make Bahasa terms popular in its homeland itself?

My lecturer once said "We don't have to be a worry if the language is going to lose. Because we can't avoid the changes in language, it's just a natural process of growing. The important thing is we just need to do the documentation of the language."

I mean.

We all need to be growing. But if growing equal to losing your identity gradually, will it worth the price? This does not mean I only live for the differences and not valuing the equality. It's just because every single thing has their own identity.

What would happen if Indonesia use English as their language and England use Bahasa as their language?

At the end of this writing, I want to say that I still need and love my job as a writer but I also do want to help Bahasa growth without losing its identity.