- In 1945, the year of Indonesia's independence,
there were probably less than five million native speakers of
dialects of Malay--the language from which Indonesian has been
developed--and a few million speakers of various pidginized and
creolized forms of Malay in different formerly colonial cities.
The 1971 national census shows some 40 percent of the national
population of 118 million to have known Indonesian; the 1981
census placed that number at almost half of 150 million
Indonesians. Abas (1987,
source of these figures) projects that 60 percent of
approximately 190 million knew Indonesian as of 1991, a figure
which is projected to rise to slightly less than 70 percent of
a projected population of 240 million in the year 2001.
- See in this regard Pemberton's illuminating
study (1989)
of Dutch influence on ``high'' Javanese courtly tradition, and
its place, in turn, among the New Order elite. It resonates
with appeals to a wholistic Javanese syncretism, credited by
Javanese and non-Javanese to a culture which assimilates rather
than resists ``outside'' influence, preserving itself by imbue
the foreign with an indefinite yet
unmistakably Javanese cast. For examples of such explanatory
appeals--scholarly and journalistic, old and new--see for
instance Willner (1966)
and The Economist special survey on Indonesia 17 April
1993, esp. p. 18, and Robison's useful 1983
review.
- Richard Baumann kindly pointed this out during
conference of this paper; on reciprocal Javanese and Weberian
perspectives on issues of power see the conclusion of
Anderson's 1972
paper.
- See, for a brief review of some of these, Anderson
1994
and Kedourie 1993:142-143.
- Standard Indonesian and Javanese orthographies are
used throughout this paper.
- In this respect Professor Gellner is by his own
criteria in the curiously conflicted position of being both
demystifier/apostate and ``high priest'' of the secular
religion of nationalism.
- Space and thematic considerations prevent me from
considering the striking transition in Fishman's writings on
such issues in his later work.
- That this phrase is difficult to translate suggests
something of its breadth, ifnot vagueness: bangsa by
itself suggests ``race'' or ``group of people linked by common
descent;'' masyarakyat invokes notions of ``people in
socity.'' So, one can refer either to bangsa or
masyarakyat Indonesia, meaning roughly `the
Indoenseian people' and `Indonesian society' respectively.
- ``Gagasan tentang masyarakat bangsa tidak akan
dipahami dengan baik oleh masyarakat bila satu bahasa
nasional...tidak ada. Negara yang mempunyai satu bahasa umum
yang dikenal oleh seluruh rakyatnya kan lebih maju dalam
pembangunan, dan ideologi politiknya akan lebih aman dan
stabil.''
- Known under the present regime as the Old Order
(orde baru).
- For example:
A culture begins to bud, when there grows up within a society a
conviction of the truth of a certain system of values....the
ability of a culture to develop is not unlimited, for very
culture contains within itself the dialectic of all growth. As
the papaya seed, which sprouts in the fertile soil and joyfully
thrusts up through it to greet the beneficent rays of the sun,
must experience, the further it rises up out of the earth, an
increasing remoteness from the soil, from which its roots suck
up the sap, that makes it grow, so every culture that gives
expression to a definite system of values, must eventually
experience the limits to the possibilities of its further
development. (Alisjahbana 1961. p. 3)
- ``ibarat orang mendirikan gedung
besar'' (Suharto 1971).
- For background and discussion see Budiman
1990.
- Anderson considers there obvious, relevant
questions about the relation of his effort to Weberian notions
of charisma; space prevents a review of this important issue
here.
- Two Sanskrit-derived Old Javanese words are
combined here with an Austronesian Old Javanese deictic. For
more detail on this vocabulary and the other issues taken up in
this section see Errington 1986.
- See Smithies 1982,
Salim 1977,
Schmidgall-Tellings and Stevens 1981.
- For more discussion, see Errington 1989.
- This is the General Dictionary of Indonesian
(Kamus umum bahasa Indonesia, produced by the Center
for the Improvement and Development of Language (Pusat
Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa), of the Department of
Education and Culture and published by Balai Pustaka, the state
publishing house.
- My thanks to Matthew Cohen for providing me with
a copy and translation of this play; I have however taken
liberties with the latter for my own purposes here.
- Because I have not been able to gain access to
copies of papers read at the conference, or minutes of its
proceedings, I am obliged here to draw on accounts in the mass
media. For present purposes these general reports suffice.
- For discussion of this convention see Errington
1992.
- Far from verging on extinction, these forms now
appear to be alive and well in the formal, public speech of
Indonesian functionaries in official Indonesian venues; on this
topic see Errington forthcoming.
- My thanks to its author, Bapak Pramono, for
permission to include his cartoon in this paper.