“Si Bak Or Si Yue on Pisang?” Examining Acehnese Youth's
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Proceedings of the International Conference on the Roles of Parents in Shaping Children’s Characters (ICECED), December 3-4, 2018, Anjong Mon Mata, Banda Aceh, Indonesia “SI BAK OR SI YUE ON PISANG?” EXAMINING ACEHNESE YOUTH’S KNOWLEDGE ON THE USE OF CORRECT CONTEXTUAL COUNTING SYSTEM IN ACEHNESE *1Dini Hanifa, 2,3Dian Fajrina 1The Graduate Program of English Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia 2Department of English Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia 3School of Teacher Education, College of Education, Health and Human Development, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand *Email: [email protected] Abstract In the past few decades, more and more Acehnese youth prefer to use Indonesian language in daily communication than Acehnese language despite that both speaker and interlocutor know how to speak in Acehnese. This study intends to investigate how far the Acehnese youth still know how to speak in correct Acehnese language, especially in the use of contextual counting system, such as whether to use si bak or si yue when followed by on pisang. The data were collected by asking 100 respondents to translate ten sentences in Indonesian language, which include contextual counting, into Acehnese language. The result shows that most of the respondent found difficulty in putting the correct term to use in Acehnese when dealing with contextual counting. The finding of this study should give valuable information of the need to conserve the language from being loss as the motto said, “Language is the soul of a nation." Keywords: Acehnese Language, Acehnese Youth, Contextual Counting System, Language Loss INTRODUCTION Acehnese language is one of 652 local languages used in Indonesia. In 2000, Acehnese language had 3.5 million speakers and those speakers mostly located in Aceh Province. Acehnese language speakers are scattered all over Aceh Province, mostly in Banda Aceh City, Aceh Besar Regency, Pidie Regency, Pidie Jaya Regency, Bireuen City, Aceh Utara (North Aceh) Regency, Lhokseumawe City, Aceh Timur (East Aceh) Regency, Aceh Barat (West Aceh) Regency, and Sabang City. Acehnese language speakers can also be found in some southern area in Aceh Province mostly in Bakongan, Blang Pidie, Kuala Batèe, Sawang, Trumon, Manggéng, Tangan Tangan, and Meukék. Acehnese language speakers in smaller number can be found Aceh Tengah (Center Aceh) Regency, Aceh Tenggara (South East Aceh) Regency, and Sinabang Island (Wildan, 2010). Recently, Acehnese parents prefer to speak Indonesian language as the official language of Indonesia with their kids (Alamsyah, Taib, Azwardi & Idham, 2011). This results in the Acehnese youth unable to master Acehnese language or have limited ability to communicate in this language. Acehnese youth also found to be reluctant to use Acehnese language due to several reasons, such as speaking in Indonesian language sounds to be an upper-class person and looks prestigious (Al-Auwal, 2017). 115 Dini Hanifa & Dian Fajrina The Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture believes that local languages are now being abandoned by their users and threatened to be disappeared. He said that local languages must be preserved and developed so that they are not lost in the times. Among ways to conserve Acehnese language are by teaching this language at school and home environment, and everyone has to promote it (Setyadi, 2015) Considering what has been happened these years, the researchers decided to do a research about Acehnese youth knowledge on Acehnese language. This research will examine how far Acehnese youth still understand how to use proper Acehnese Language, especially in connection to the use of correct Contextual Counting System (CCS) of the language. LITERATURE REVIEW Acehnese: Language and Society Acehnese language is a spoken language in Aceh Province in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. This language is “closely related to the Chamic subgroup of Austronesian” (Corbett, 2004, p. 64). According to Wildan (2010), there are also eight other local languages in Aceh Province. Those languages are Aneuk Jamee language, Kluet language, Alas language, Gayo language, Haloban language, Devayan language, Simeulue language, and Tamiang language. In the society, Acehnese language has a special meaning for its native speakers. The language is known as "the pride of Acehnese people," "the identity of Acehnese society," "the way to connect with other Acehnese," “support regional culture and Indonesian language," and "support regional literature and Indonesian literature” (Wildan, 2010). Native Speaker Chomsky (1965) states that “linguistic theory is concerned with an ideal speaker- listener in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance" (p. 3). This means that native speakers of the same language who communicate with each other should not have linguistic problems in communication. To be distinct, Stern (1983) asserts that the term “Native-Speaker is someone who acquires a language in his early childhood." Stern also argues that a native speaker speaks and sets a habit of a certain language as his L1. It is about what they "say," not what they "write." However, it does not mean that there is no difference in L1 language skills between one native and another native. According to research conducted by Medgyes (1992), the differences between one native and another can be said to be absent from linguistic sense. In pedagogy sense, a native can be different from other natives. A native “pick up” the language, not learning grammar or rules” (Krashen, 1981). However, according to Medgyes (1992), there are also those who called native speakers who need to study their native language intentionally because they did not acquire the language since born, instead, they had their national language as their first language. For example, there is Acehnese youth who learn Acehnese language when they grew up either 116 Proceedings of the International Conference on the Roles of Parents in Shaping Children’s Characters (ICECED), December 3-4, 2018, Anjong Mon Mata, Banda Aceh, Indonesia formally from school or informally from their environment. This has become a differentiator between a native and another native in the pedagogy sense. Endangered Language The existence of a certain language would be in an endangered situation if native speakers began to abandon their own language and chose to use other languages. Swigger (2007) categorizes endangered language into two key concepts, namely: language obsolescence and language death. Language obsolescence is a condition where a certain language is not used in daily life anymore, and the native speaker tends to switch to another language. In linguistic terms, language obsolescence is also known as language loss. Language obsolescence can occur for various reasons such as geographical location, political situation, and ideological cause. Meanwhile, language death is a condition where language obsolescence reaches its final. Unresolved language obsolescence leads to language death. In some cases, language death occurs suddenly. For example, habitat death due to destruction or epidemic. Research conducted by Alamsyah, Taib, Azwardi & Idham (2011) shows that language obsolescence phenomena began to occur in Aceh. Acehnese's parents prefer to teach their children Indonesian language as their first language rather than Acehnese language, even though both parents are from Acehnese ethnicity and are able to speak Acehnese language. As a result, many Acehnese youths nowadays do not know how to speak Acehnese language well and correctly, even more, comfortable using Indonesian language. If this continues to occur, it is not impossible that Acehnese language will experience a crisis or even disappear in the future. Contextual Counting System in Acehnese Language Since the past few years, some researches on the Acehnese language morphology have been carried out. However, only one research studied about Contextual Counting System in Acehnese language along with its quantifiers. The research was conducted by Azwardi in 2014. Azwardi (2014) claimed that to calculate the number of objects, there are 84 quantifiers that could be used in Acehnese language. The sources of data for the research were native speakers from various districts and cities in Aceh province. Unfortunately, this research did not explain in detail the origin of the regency of each quantifier and how the speakers used the quantifiers. METHOD In order to collect the data, the researchers interviewed a native speaker whose Acehnese language is his first language as an informant. He is 76 years old male from Pidie Jaya Regency and has been living in Banda Aceh City since 1970. He acquired Indonesian language when he was in elementary school. The researchers chose him in accordance with Chomsky's Linguistic Theory about the ideal native speaker (1965). The researchers then conducted a survey of 100 respondents of Acehnese youth from different cities and regencies of Aceh Province, age between 16 and 40 years old. They were asked to translate ten sentences in Indonesian language, which include Acehnese quantifier, into Acehnese language. The ten quantifiers were chosen