Dynamic multilingualism and language shift scenarios in Indonesia MAYA RAVINDRANATH ABTAHIAN & ABIGAIL C. COHN This article appears in: Endangered languages and the land: Mapping landscapes of multilingualism Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL XXII / 2018) Vigdís World Language Centre, Reykjavík, 23–25 August 2018 Editors: Sebastian Drude, Nicholas Ostler, Marielle Moser ISBN: 978-1-9160726-0-2 Cite this article: Ravindranath Abtahian, Maya & Abigail C. Cohn. 2018. Dynamic multilingualism and language shift scenarios in Indonesia. In S. Drude, N. Ostler & M. Moser (eds.), Endangered languages and the land: Mapping landscapes of multilingualism, Proceedings of FEL XXII/2018 (Reykjavík, Iceland), 106–112. London: FEL & EL Publishing. First published: December 2018 Link to this article: http://www.elpublishing.org/PID/4016 This article is published under a Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial). The licence permits users to use, reproduce, disseminate or display the article provided that the author is attributed as the original creator and that the reuse is restricted to non-commercial purposes i.e. research or educational use. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Foundation for Endangered Languages: http://www.ogmios.org EL Publishing: http://www.elpublishing.org Dynamic multilingualism and language shift scenarios in Indonesia Maya Ravindranath Abtahian Department of Linguistics • University of Rochester • 514 Lattimore Hall • Rochester, NY, 14627-0096, USA [[email protected]] Abigail C. Cohn Department of Linguistics • Cornell University • 159 Central Ave • Ithaca, NY, 14853-4701, USA [[email protected]] Abstract Indonesia, an archipelago of roughly 14,000 islands, is home to approximately 700 languages. The instatement and development of Bahasa Indonesia as the national language is widely described as a highly successful example of language planning across the multi- lingual archipelago, and simultaneously as the catalyst for the endangerment of scores of local languages. In an ongoing project exam- ining language shift in Indonesia and focusing on languages with a million speakers or more, we seek to explore this complex language ecology (Mufwene 2017) and the nature of dynamic multilingualism (Musgrave 2014) and language shift scenarios in Indonesia at multiple levels of inquiry, including sociolinguistic interviews, Indonesian census data, and a language use questionnaire, Kuesioner Penggunaan Bahasa Sehari-hari. Here we use our questionnaire data to look specifically at the relationship between identity (ethno- linguistic and regional) and language use in Indonesia with an analysis of how speakers classify and name language varieties that they report. We study the socio-geographic effect of “inner” vs. “outer” island in the Indonesian archipelago, comparing our census data results with further insight gained from our questionnaire data. Keywords: language shift; Indonesia; Bahasa Indonesia; language endangerment; census shift is rarely the result of just one or two factors but ra- Introduction ther “results from the specific and complex constellation Indonesia is home to approximately 700 languages of a variety of such factors… an endangerment sce- (roughly 10% of the world’s languages) and is an archi- nario”. Then we turn to the socio-geographic effect of pelago of roughly 14,000 islands, ranging in size from “inner” vs. “outer” island in the Indonesian archipelago, among the largest in the world (New Guinea, Borneo, Su- comparing our census data results with further insights matra) to dots of land as yet unnamed. The instatement gained from our questionnaire data and addressing the and development of Bahasa Indonesia as a national lan- observation made by Musgrave (2014: 87) that the lin- guage following the founding of the Republic of Indone- guistic situation in Indonesia is better viewed as “chang- sia in 1945 is widely described as a highly successful ex- ing patterns of multilingualism, rather than as shifts of ample of language planning across the multilingual archi- large populations from one language to another.” pelago (Heryanto 1995: 5). At the same time, increasing use of Indonesian as a lingua franca and language of daily Dynamic multilingualism in Indonesia use is arguably the catalyst for the endangerment of The relationship between land and water sets the back- scores of local languages. To frame this shift only in drop for the complex language ecology of Indonesia. terms of language loss, however, is to miss the dynamic Leow (2016: 4, citing Andaya 2006), argues that South- complexity of the language ecology (Mufwene 2017) of east Asia’s ecological landscape is uniquely fragmentary Indonesia. In an ongoing project examining language and diverse, “made up of promontories and islands and shift in Indonesia, we seek to explore this complexity and surrounded by bodies of water that have seen thousands the nature of dynamic multilingualism and language shift of years of movement,” and that this is mirrored in the scenarios in Indonesia through the analysis of sociolin- human dimension, where the existing linguistic plurality guistic interviews, Indonesian census data (Abtahian et in the region is then layered with centuries of colonialism al., 2016a), and a language use questionnaire, Kuesioner that “produced new hybrids out of plurality.” The last 70 Penggunaan Bahasa Sehari-hari ‘Everyday Language years of language planning for Bahasa Indonesia have Use Questionnaire’ (Cohn et al. 2013; 2014). added a layer of complexity to this linguistic pluralism, We start with a brief snapshot of the linguistic situation as repertoires continue to narrow in some cases, and ex- in Indonesia and an overview of our project, largely fo- pand in others. In some cases local languages are being cusing on the “big languages” of Indonesia, those with replaced by regional koinés, for example as Rural Jambi over a million speakers. We then address the need to is replaced by City Jambi (Yanti 2010: 2-3) or the in- model factors contributing to language shift, building on creasing importance of Kupang Malay (Errington 2014). Himmelmann’s (2010: 46) observation that language Sometimes the new variety is a local colloquial variety of 106 Indonesian, as in the rapid adoption of Jakarta Indone- Language Region Pop (non) inner/ sian, not only in Jakarta but also in other major urban ar- in M Malayic outer eas (see Kurniawan in progress, for discussion). At the same time, in some speech communities, particularly Java Java & Bali 84.3 non I those with complex speech registers like Javanese, the Sunda Java & Bali 34.0 non I shift is better described as shifting patterns of multilin- gualism (Musgrave 2014) that offer a medium for chang- Bahasa 22.8 M ing performative functions of language (Goebel 2018). Indonesia In thinking about what has been lost and gained in this Madura Java & Bali 6.7 non I shifting language ecology, much of the attention to date Minang- Sumatra 5.5 M O has been on languages with small speaker populations. kabau This focus follows from Krauss’s (1992) criteria that any Batak1 Sumatra 5.5 non O language with fewer than 100,000 speakers be considered at risk, which includes 88.2% (623) of Indonesia’s lan- Betawi Java & Bali 5.0 M I guages (Lewis et al. 2014). Work on documenting endan- Bugis Sulawesi 5.0 non O gered languages in Indonesia has largely focused on lan- Malay Sumatra 4.9 M O guages with small speaker populations, albeit recogniz- ing that, as Florey writes, “[r]estricting the definition of Aceh Sumatra 3.5 non O ‘endangered language’ to those languages with small Banjar Kalimantan 3.5 M O speaker populations disguises the extent of the problem” Bali Java & Bali 3.3 non I (Florey 2005: 59), and “[i]n spite of their large speech communities, the Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese Musi Sumatra 3.1 M O languages are actually endangered in that some of their Makasar Sulawesi 2.1 non O domains of usage are being taken over by Indonesian, Sasak Nusa 2.1 non I and, to a lesser extent, in that they are not always passed Tenggara on to the next generation.” (Adelaar 2010: 25). In our (Lombok) project, we turn our focus to the “big language” commu- nities of Indonesia with over a million speakers, gener- Gorontalo Sulawesi 1.0 non O ally considered protected from large-scale language shift. Malay, Sumatra 1.0 M O This focus grew out of the observation that even in lan- Jambi guage communities like Javanese (the 10th most widely spoken language in the world) language use patterns are Table 1: Spoken languages of Indonesia with over 1 changing (Errington 1998; Poejosoedarmo 2006; Se- million speakers, based on Lewis et al., 2014 tiawan 2012), and a lack of intergenerational transmis- In Abtahian et al. (2016a) we used a 1% sample of the sion is also reported (Smith-Hefner 2009; Setiawan 2012; 2010 Indonesian census, available through the Integrated Kurniasih 2006). Methodologically, a focus on big lan- Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS; Minnesota Popu- guages allows us to consider more broadly the language lation Center 2014) to examine language shift toward In- ecology in each community and to compare these across donesian in the ten non-Malayic language communities different language communities in Indonesia in order to with over a million speakers (those not closely related to understand what factors are generalizable. Indonesian), according to a broad set of social categories: In Table 1, we list the 21 languages in Indonesia with age, sex, religion, urbanization, education, and economic over a million speakers (Lewis et al. 2014), by popula- development. Our findings, summarized below, provided tion. As we are making comparisons between Malayic background for the questionnaire data analysis. We em- [M] vs non-Malayic [non] ethnolinguistic groups and phasize toward, as the census data available through “inner” island (Java, Bali) [I] and “outer” island (Suma- IPUMS do not provide information as to what other lan- tra) [O], so we also indicate these distinctions.