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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 ,

“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, , 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 in daily communication than 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 , , , Bireuen City, Aceh Utara (North Aceh) Regency, 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).

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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 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, , , Haloban language, Devayan language, 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 ," "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

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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

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 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 according to the informant’s suggestion. The correct translations acted as the answer key was provided by the informant.

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The data from the respondents were given four treatments: 1. Grouping, CCS data from the result of the survey were grouped based on the area of origin of each respondent. 2. Matching, CCS data from the result of the survey were matching with the CCS data from the result of the interview with the informant. 3. Comparing, CCS Data from the result of the survey was compared with CCS data from the result of the interview with the informant. 4. Analyzing, the data were analyzed to find the percentage of those who provided correct answers. The results of the analysis will then be discussed and concluded.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Results The result of data analysis was classified based on the counting system asked in each question. The results presented based on the percentage of the correct answer given by the participants. 1. Ap/ãp (a mouthful of), refers to how many mouthfuls of food someone gives to another. The food can be solid or half-liquid. It usually uses a spoon, fork, chopsticks, or hand. The question is "a mouthful of rice." 64% of respondents answered ap. It means that this quantifier is still commonly used. The rest 36% of the respondents gave various answers, such as sup/suep (Aceh Barat Daya and Aceh Selatan), suleung (Aceh Barat), and suap (Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar). 2. Reugam/rɯgam (a handful of), refers to a handful of something. It is usually used to indicate a handful of uncountable object and spices such as seeds, beans, pepper, and rice. The question is "a handful of bean." The result was that 63% of respondents answered reugam. This means that this quantifier is still commonly used. The other20% of the respondents answered genggam (Aceh Besar, Banda Aceh, Bireuen), which is adapted from Indonesian language. The rest 17% gave various answers such as geupai, jaroe, tumpuk, and bacut. 3. Jeumpet/jɯmpet (a pinch of), refers to finely pounded or granulated object, taken only a pinch from its containers such as salt and sugar. The question is "a pinch of salt." It was found that 61% of respondents answered bacut. This word has a slightly different meaning to Jeumpet/jɯmpet. Bacut means "a little bit of." Only 16%of the respondents provided correct answer (jeumpet/jɯmpet) who originated from Aceh Besar, Aceh Timur, Aceh Utara, Banda Aceh, Bireuen, and Pidie. The other 25% gave various answers such as be-ok/bi-ok and waneuk/duaneuk which have a similar meaning to bacut. 4. Beureukah/bɯrɯkah (a bundled object), refers to one kind of object bundled together. These bundled-together objects are usually quite big, large, and heavy. If it is too big, Acehnese locals usually bring this on their head, so it is easier to be moved. The question is “3 bundled-paper”. Respondents from all regencies provided various answers, such as bundel, tumpok, gulong, ikat, punyi, jilitan, gunong, upai, and pak. There were only five respondents (5%) who provided a correct answer; 1 from Aceh Barat, one from Aceh Besar, one from Aceh Utara, and two from Bireuen. 5. Chue/chu (a vertically-cut quarter), refers to a whole object, which is cut in half vertically then each part is cut in half vertically one more time, so it becomes four parts. This part of a cut-in-half-vertically-twice object is called chue. It is usually referred to a quarter cut of big fish such as tuna.

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The question is "a quarter-cut of tuna." Respondents from all regencies mostly gave the same answer, namely seperempat and seperpeut. There were only five respondents (out of 100) who gave a correct answer; 4 from Aceh Besar, and one from Pidie. 6. Krak/krak or krek/krɛk (a piece of), refers to each piece of biscuit, sandwich, chips, cookie, cake, and a slice of fruit. The question is "a piece of biscuit." 85% of respondents answered krak/krek. It means that this quantifier is still commonly used. The rest 15% of the respondents gave a different answer, such as saboh (Aceh Barat Daya, Aceh Besar, Aceh Timur, Banda Aceh, , and Pidie Jaya), and sepotong (Aceh Tamiang). 7. Yue/yu (stuck-to-the-stem leaves), commonly refers to a leave which is still stuck on its stems, such as banana leaves, coconut leaves, and palm leaves. The question is “two banana leaves." Respondents from all regencies mostly gave the same answer (77%), namely on. There are only 16 respondents (16%) who gave a correct answer, three from Aceh Besar, three from Aceh Timur, three from Aceh Utara, two from Banda Aceh, one from Bireuen, two from Pidie, and two from Pidie Jaya. The other 7% gave various answer such as bak, laye, and krak. 8. Cak/cak (a pile of), refers to a pile of something soft, elastic, and delicate, such as meat. It also can be used to half-liquid objects, such as mud and clay. The question is "some piles of mud." 76%of the respondents from all regencies gave a variety of answers, such as bercak, labak, tumpok, reutek, bekas, incip, and titek. 24% of the respondents managed to give the correct answer. 9. On/ɵn (a sheet of), refers to a thin and light object. It also can be a small or large object, such as money and paper. The question is "a sheet of paper." 94% of respondents answered on, which means that this quantifier is still commonly used. 10. Geupai/gɯpai (a fistful of), refers to a fistful or a handful of the uncountable delicate object, such as snow, ice, ground, meat, and dough. The question is "a fistful of ice." Only 25% of the respondents (from various regency) answered correctly. The rest of the respondents from all regencies gave a variety of answers, such as genggam, kepal, gumpai, si-ulah, and saboh-kok.

Discussion Out of 10, there are four quantifiers that are still frequently used, namely ap/ãp (a mouthful of), reugam/rɯgam (a handful of), krak/krak or krek/krɛk (a piece of), and on/ɵn (a sheet of). On the contrary, there are three quantifiers that are very rarely used, namely beureukah/bɯrɯkah (a bundled object), chue/chu (a vertically-quarter cut), and yue/yu (stuck-to-the-stem leaves).

In Banda Aceh City and , the quantifier ap/ãp (a mouthful of) is often replaced by suap. The word suap comes from Indonesian language which has the same meaning as ap/ãp. According to the informant, this happened because, in Banda Aceh City and Aceh Besar Regency, the community preferred to switch to Indonesian language. This happens because Banda Aceh City and Aceh Besar Regency has a large number of migrants from other regencies, both from other cities and regencies in Aceh Province and outside Aceh Province. This also applies to quantifier reugam/rɯgam (a handful of) which is often replaced with the word genggam. The word genggam comes from Indonesian language and has the same meaning as reugam/rɯgam.

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Quantifier krak/krak or krek/krɛk (a piece of) dan on/ɵn (a sheet of) are still frequently used, both in Banda Aceh City and Aceh Besar Regency. According to the informant, this is a unique phenomenon, considering other quantifiers have already switched to Indonesian language, surprisingly these quantifiers survive.

Beureukah/bɯrɯkah (a bundled object) is a quantifier that has many variations, likewise with the cak/cak (a pile of) and geupai/gɯpai (a fistful of). This variation is most likely caused by the diversity of Acehnese dialects. Considering that the respondents were from and domiciled in various cities and regencies in Aceh Province and outside Aceh Province, this variation is a normal phenomenon. However, still, there were respondents who used Indonesian language. Beureukah/bɯrɯkah is replaced with bundelan, cak/cakis replaced with bercak, and geupai/gɯpaiis replaced with sekepal. All these three are from Indonesian language.

Chue/chu (a vertically-cut quarter) and yue/yu (stuck-to-the-stem leaves) are quantifiers that are almost never used by Acehnese youths nowadays. The word chue/chu is replaced with seperpeut which means "quarter." There were also those who used the word seperempat. This word comes from Indonesian language and has the same meaning. According to the informant, this word became rare because it was rarely used. This word only appears in fishmarket when the transactions to buy medium to large sized fish are happening. This word does not apply to objects other than fish, even though the object is "vertically-cut quarter." This also applies to yue/yu. This quantifier is only used on banana leaves, coconut leaves, and palm leaves.

Meanwhile, there is a quantifier that changes, namely jeumpet/jɯmpet (a pinch of). According to the informant, this change occurs because the Acehnese people generally preferred to use the word bacut (a little bit of) rather than jeumpet/jɯmpet. The words bi- ok/be-ok and waneuk/duaneuk have the same meaning as bacut, but it is a figurative meaning, not a true meaning. The word bi-ok/be-ok comes from ubi ok/ubee ok which actually means "hair-sized." The use of the word bi-ok/be-ok is not as popular as the word bacut even though it has the same meaning. Meanwhile, the word waneuk/duaneuk comes from the word dua neuk which has the real meaning "2 grains". Acehnese people often use the word waneuk/duaneuk when asking for something that should amount quite a lot to make it sounds smaller. For example, when the Acehnese people ask for a glass of water, they most likely never say ka bi ie saboh glah (give me a glass of water), but ka bi ie waneuk/duaneuk (give me 2 grains of water). Another example, when asking for a plate of rice with side dishes, they would say ka bi bu waneuk/duaneuk (give me 2 grains of cooked rice), not ka bi bu saboh pingan ngon eungkot jih (give me a plate of cooked rice with a side dish). This applies to almost all regencies where the people speak Acehnese language.

CONCLUSIONS Some quantifiers which still commonly used by Acehnese youths nowadays are; ap, reugam, krek/krak, and on. On the contrary, some quantifiers which not commonly used by Acehnese youths nowadays are; jeumpet, beureukah, chue, yue, cak, and geupai. Acehnese youths nowadays use term bacut more often than jeumpet when it comes to describe "a pinch of something." It is assumed that the reason for the varieties of quantifier given was because the respondents came from different regencies of Aceh Province and brought with them their own dialect.

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Respondents from Banda Aceh City and Aceh Besar Regency tend to switch their language into Indonesian language. This was happened because of the large number of migrants, both from other cities and regencies in Aceh Province and from outside Aceh Province which result in Acehnese people in these two areas prefer to communicate in Indonesian language as the national language. As discussed in the introduction, the Acehnese language is not the only spoken language in Aceh Province. Therefore, this could be the reason why Acehnese people prefer to use Indonesian language to communicate with others who do not share the same first language as theirs.

It is suggested that researchers who have a similar interest in this field could do further research by having more detailed and accurate CCS research by having more informants and respondents from various regency in Aceh Province, more kinds of quantifier, and a lot more questions in order to gain more accurate data. If possible, it is recommended to compare one dialect to another and from one sub-dialect to the others.

REFERENCES Alamsyah, T., Taib, R., Azwardi, & Idham, M. (2011). Pemilihan Bahasa Indonesia sebagai bahasa pertama anak dalam keluarga masyarakat Aceh penutur Bahasa Aceh di Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa Melayu, 1(2), 31-44. Al-Auwal, T. M. R. (2007). Reluctance of Acehnese youth to use Acehnese. Studies in and Education, 4(1), 1-14. Azwardi. (2014). Penggolong “boh” dalam Bahasa. Majalah Ilmiah Ilmu-ilmu Humaniora [Mentari], 17(1), 100-119. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press. Corbett, G. G. (2004). Number.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second language acquisition and second anguage learning. Oxford: Pergamon. Medgyes, P. (1992). Native or non-native: Who's worth more? ELT Journal, 46(4), 340– 349.https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/46.4.340 Setyadi, A. (2015). Mendikbud khawatir bahasa daerah punah karena jumlah penutur menurun. Detiknews. Retrieved from http://news.detik.com/berita/d- 3091739/mendikbud-khawatir-bahasa-daerah-punah-karena-jumlah-penutur- menurun Stern, H. H. (1983). Fundamental concepts of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swiggers, P. (2007). Two key concepts of language endangerment: Language obsolescence and language death. Linguistica, 47(1), 21-33. https://doi.org/10.4312/linguistica.47.1.21-33 Wildan. (2010). Kaidah Bahasa Aceh. Banda Aceh: Penerbit Geuci.

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