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Haruku teachers Daan Saija (left) and Countering Purism Robert Akihary (right) teaching in The Revitalization of Moluccan Languages workshop level 1

In minority indigenous communities where languages are endangered, people are adopting Research> more dominant or prestigious languages, introduced through colonization, trade, and Southeast Asia evangelization, as a national language, or as a language of wider communication. Among the remaining speakers of the endangered language, levels of fluency vary considerably. As knowledge and use diminish among younger speakers, linguists commonly observe widespread grammatical restructuring and the emergence of new varieties. These processes may lead to a ‘language shift cycle’.

By Margaret Florey guage are again spoken across genera- spoken by very few people in Maluku, tions. An innovative training pro- speakers remain among Moluccan res- he language shift cycle begins with gramme being developed among idents in the Netherlands. In 1950, Textensive variation flourishing in speakers of Moluccan languages and when many Moluccans were unwilling the endangered language. Variation is their descendents, both in the eastern to join the newly formed Republic of Florey Margaret by photos Both evident in the lexicon, with greater use Indonesian homeland and in the Dutch Indonesia against which they had of loanwords from the encroaching lan- diaspora, hopes to meet this challenge. fought, some 12,500 soldiers and their tanah (indigenous languages) among Among the participants who took part guage. More significant is the gram- A high level of linguistic diversity families accepted an opportunity to second- and third-generation Dutch in all three workshops, we observed the matical restructuring which common- characterizes the 14 Central Moluccan demobilize in the Netherlands. The vast Moluccans. Aspirations for language socio-political boundaries between eth- ly accompanies language shift. Islands in eastern Indonesia: no less majority of them continue to live in use range from incorporating a few nolinguistic groups begin to break Speakers of various ages and levels of than 42 Austronesian languages are exile, and among the 50,000 Dutch words into speech as markers of iden- down. At level 3, as students discussed fluency reanalyse the grammatical fea- spoken in the region. The greatest Moluccans there may be speakers of as tity to writing songs, poetry, and litera- and planned future language activities, tures of the indigenous language in dif- diversity is found on Seram Island with many as ten Central Moluccan lan- ture in bahasa tanah, and in some they began to see the larger cross-lin- ferent ways, resulting in different gram- 21 extant languages and Ambon Island guages (Florey and Van Engelenhoven cases, to becoming speakers of ances- guistic group as a broader base for lan- mars of the language existing with six. Language endangerment in 2001). tral languages. Elderly first generation guage maintenance activities. side-by-side in one community. Such the Central Moluccan Islands is attrib- It is within this framework of high Dutch Moluccans, encouraged by this Confronting language variation and lexical and grammatical variation com- utable to a cluster of factors: a long his- linguistic diversity, serious endanger- interest, wish to share their residual change appears to have challenged a monly triggers reactions among older tory of contact with non-indigenous ment, and poor documentation that a knowledge of bahasa tanah. However, long-standing belief system and aided people who wish to maintain a ‘pure’ or peoples, colonization, intensive trade, project is being undertaken to docu- community members have been uncer- in establishing a more informed and more conservative form of the lan- and conversion to non-indigenous reli- ment four previously undescribed Cen- tain about how to teach and learn the secure sociolinguistic identity based on guage. These puristic attitudes may gions. These factors have all con- tral Moluccan languages. Research languages, and have seen their efforts an understanding that ancestral lan- result in older fluent speakers restrict- tributed to the widespread use of the team members Florey, Ewing, Lita- frustrated by a lack of materials. guages are related yet different. A prom- ing their use of the language with non- contact language Ambonese Malay. It mahuputty, and Musgrave are working The research team responded to com- ising start towards an approach that fos- fluent speakers. Decreased transmis- is furthermore well documented that in both the Indonesian homeland and munity aspirations for language aware- ters a higher level of linguistic tolerance sion and lack of access to a fluent languages in Christian villages in in the Dutch diaspora with speakers of ness and renewal activities by offering has already been made. These are speaker model lead to imperfect learn- Maluku are becoming obsolescent languages indigenous to Amahai and a series of bahasa tanah workshops in important developments from the per- ing among younger speakers, which more rapidly than languages spoken in Soahuku villages (Seram Island), Aboru three language groups: Koako (Ama- spectives both of language revitalization then gives rise to greater variation. And villages that have converted to Islam. In (Haruku Island), Tulehu (Ambon hai/Soahuku), Haruku, and Allang. The and of capacity building in endangered so begins a cycle in which the drive for the postcolonial era, the national lan- Island), and Allang (Ambon Island). training philosophy aims to demystify language communities. In fieldwork purism is itself implicated in language guage, Indonesian, has impacted on Models for working with communi- linguistics and linguistic fieldwork and practice, particularly in the documenta- obsolescence. the linguistic ecology through its status ty members are being developed, for empower individuals and communities tion of endangered languages, greater The challenge for linguists wishing as the language of education, media, example, in the network of Aboriginal to undertake language documentation, tolerance and compromise may be to respond to the voiced desires of com- and government. Against this back- Language Centres in Australia, and in which they can use for either revitaliza- attained if linguists play a greater role munities to maintain or renew endan- ground, a recent analysis of linguistic the Master-Apprentice scheme estab- tion or maintenance of the language at in educating and training communities gered languages, lies with developing vitality among Austronesian languages lished by Hinton for indigenous Cali- the grassroots level. Furthermore, it about language variation so as to create tools to intervene in the language shift (Florey forthcoming) shows that fornian languages (Hinton and Hale aims to counter the perceived need for awareness about the issues, and about cycle. For a start, this means counter- Maluku has the highest level of lan- 2001). These models aim to empower the involvement of professionals in all change and variation as the norm in ing puristic attitudes by working with guage endangerment in Indonesia. Six communities through training pro- language activities and to confront the every speech community. < community members to increase lin- languages are known to have become grammes that facilitate community issue of language variation and change guistic tolerance and compromise. Ulti- extinct in recent times, and seven of the ownership of language activities. in order to counter puristic attitudes and References mately, the goal is to support language 19 seriously endangered languages In the Netherlands, the past decade intervene in the language shift cycle. - Florey, Margaret, ‘Language shift and revitalization by rebuilding an envi- have fewer than 50 speakers. has witnessed a revival of interest in Three workshops were held at the endangerment’, in: Himmelmann, Niko- ronment where varieties of the lan- Although endangered languages are ethnolinguistic identity and bahasa Moluks Historisch Museum, Utrecht, laus and K.A. Adelaar (eds), The Aus- in September 2003. The goal of level 1 tronesian Languages of Asia and Madagas- Getting to know bahasa tanah and level car, London: Curzon Press (Forthcoming). 2 Developing community programs for - Florey, Margaret and Aone van Engelen- bahasa tanah was to teach participants hoven, ‘Language documentation and how they can work with language teach- maintenance programs for Moluccan lan- ers to learn more about their ancestral guages in the Netherlands’, International languages, and to develop language Journal of the Sociology of Language 151 programmes in their communities. (2001), pp.195-219. Widespread linguistic variation will be - Hinton, L. and K. Hale (eds), The green encountered in communities undergo- book of language revitalization in practice, ing rapid language shift, and trainee New York: Academic Press (2001). linguists and community language workers will need tools to work with it. Dr Margaret Florey is a senior lecturer in Thus at level 3 Learning about language the Linguistics Program at Monash Univer- change, the workshop focused on cross- sity, Australia, and was an affiliated research linguistic comparison and, through a fellow at the IIAS in 2003. She has under- process of discovery, awareness devel- taken extensive research on endangered oped of the extent of variation in speech minority languages in eastern Indonesia and communities. Through 50 years of liv- Australia, and is currently coordinating a ing in the Dutch diaspora, many Moluc- collaborative research project to document can speakers and their descendents five endangered Moluccan languages in the have maintained strong links to their Indonesian homeland and in the Dutch villages of origin. Activities commonly diaspora. take place within kumpulan: ‘gathering’ [email protected] groups organized around village-level communities. At the same time, the Maluku Endangered Languages Project belief has persisted that Moluccan lan- www.arts.monash.edu.au/ling/maluku guages, be it with some lexical differ- ences, are essentially the same, and that Students in the Bahasa Koako group in workshop level 2 practising a song they have written in their language. Seated: Sergio Risamasu (back to differences between Moluccan groups camera) and Marcus Tamaela (facing camera); standing left to right: Mr L. Manusama, Frida Pasanea, Heidi Holle, Djak Tamaela, and Atef Sitanala primarily lie in the socio-political realm.

IIAS Newsletter | #33 | March 2004 25