Mother Tongue: Endangered Instrument and Identity
Muhammad Ilham Nur Fadhilah
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Preamble
This essay is a critical summary of book entitled “Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi” written
by A. Chaedar Alwasilah, first published in January 2012. Indonesia was well-known for its
diversity of religion, ethnic, cultural, also languages. Indonesia has 442 of mother tongue and 8
majorities of them (Javanese, Sundanese, Madura, Minang, Batak, Balinese, Bugis, and Banjar).
Majority of mother tongue related to amount of the speaker of the language. This paper will
focus on endangered mother tongue as identity of ethnic and as an instrument of education and
art language, also dilemmatic situation between protecting mother tongue, or shifting our first
language onto national language.
Dilemmatic: Mother or Second Language?
Related to “Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi” mother tongue makes nusantara multilingual
and multicultural vessel. Many languages comes from Indonesia, but day by day they are extinct.
More we eastward, more diminish number of speakers, and this could be a sign they are toward
the extinction. Indonesian language presence to bridge ethnic and languages differences in
Indonesia. Indonesian usage in various fields of life is one of the causes of extinction of several
regional languages in Indonesia. With escalation of Indonesian domination, which is used in a
variety of activities, events and media radio, television and newspapers are becoming a threat to
regional languages in Indonesia. It will lead to language displacement. When it happen the
displaced language will headed onto extinction, because of no speaker and text related to the
language.
Language, Ethnic’s Identity Extinction
In the book A. Chaedar Alwasilah only focus at the major mother tongue, like sundanese,
javanese, etc, he doesn’t look at the minorities language. Maybe, if the major mother tongue, we
can balance it with the national language. But what if the minorities, are we just neglect and let it
extinct? Nowadays, a lot of mother tongue threatened with extinction, even a few can be said to
have become extinct. For example Nakaela (Maluku), Lengilu (Kalimantan), Hukumina (Papua),
and many more.
Mother tongue is the nation's culture that must be preserved. It is the identity of the tribe.
If the language extinct, it can be conclude that the culture of the tribe extinct, and if the culture
extinct it will affect the Indonesian identity, which is well-known as a country with many ethnic
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differences that unite. Indonesian language itself became a snake in the grass for mother
language, and for the identity of the ethnic. Furthermore, national and mother tongue also
threatened by foreign language. Foreign language is considered as up to date, slang, modern
language. It cause many teenagers are prefer to speak by foreign language, English for example.
As the evident, many works of literature are made using English language.
Conclusion
It is dilemmatic situation, protecting our ethnic culture by protecting our mother tongue,
or shifts our first language onto national language. The solution is, we have to balance between
them, but it only takes effect on the majority mother language. For the minorities, it has to be
learned more. The problem doesn’t stop here, they also threatened by foreign language, which
saw as the modern language. So, learning a language is important, because by learning the
language means we are conserving the language it self.
Bibliography
Alwasilah, A. C. (2012). Pokoknya Rekayasa Literasi. Bandung: PT Kiblat Buku Utama.
Kurniawati, W. (2008). Menyelamatkan Bahasa Ibu dari Kepunahan.
Wardah, F. (2011, 09 23). Jarang Digunakan, Ratusan Bahasa Daerah di Indonesia Terancam
Punah. Retrieved 5 5, 2015, from VOA: http://www.voaindonesia.com/content/jarangdigunakan-ratusan-bahasa-daerah-di-indonesia-terancam-punah-130434473/98538.html
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Outline
Title: Mother Tongue: Endangered Instrument and Identity
Key word: Language, Endangered, Identity, Ethnic, Varieties
Verbs: to conserve, to build, to protect, to research
Connector: and, but, however, furthermore, so, because
Question:
What makes mother tongue endangered?
Who is responsible to conserve it?
Why mother language should be conserved?
How to conserve the mother language?
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