“Because I'm Indonesian”
By: Santi Dharmaputra
Munich, Germany

A friend of mine asked a question to my almost five-year-old son, “How could you speak Indonesian so fluently?”, which he answered, “Because I'm Indonesian, tante”. Simple and precise.

Many fellow Indonesians, both in Indonesia and abroad, are surprised when they hear my kids and I speak Indonesian language with each other (my youngest is now 15 months old). It seems most of our people consider it more normal for parents of an Indonesian family living abroad or an Indonesian marrying a foreigner, to address their kids in languages other than Indonesian. It's true that my husband is French and so far we've been living outside Indonesia, but I don't consider it a reason not to speak Indonesian to my kids. Indonesian is my mother tongue, used by my parents to raise me. I'm more comfortable to play and educate my kids with language I feel the closest. Although people can see that my kids are mixed, they still have eyes and noses of Indonesians, and their favorite foods are martabak and empal goreng. Their grannies, cousins, uncles and aunts from my side are Indonesians and bonds of relation with them will be jammed if my kids don't acquire the language.

Many Indonesian parents overseas and those marrying foreigners find lots of obstacles when trying to speak Indonesian to their kids. Most are worried that their kids would not be able to speak perfectly if growing up with more than a language. This is not true. Linguists have been doing research for decades towards countries with multilingual citizens, such as Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and Finland, where they found no language confusion or speech difficulty among their inhabitants. On the other hand, researches have proven the advantages of being a multilingual, one of them is having the ability to see everything from different point of views. It's because language acquisition also means knowing the culture and custom of the language, which at the same time enriches the knowledge and thinking ability of the speaker.

If we look at our own country, many of us were raised by parents from different ethnic groups. Fathers and mothers often address their kids in their own dialects. Do Indonesians have speaking problem from being raised by a Sundanese speaking mom and Padang speaking father? On the contrary, those raised by parents' dialects are fluent in those languages and are most likely accepted by any society. Acquisition of the languages opens up their understanding of custom of each group, leading them to become sociable people.

So, when is then the best time to start teaching Indonesian? The earlier the better. Simply use the same methods as our parents when they raised us, by talking, singing, reading books, playing and watching movies together with your kids. It's tremendously beautiful, natural and touching to show our care and love in a language we acquire the most. 


Further Readings:
1.. Hauwaert, Suzanne Barron. 2003. "Trilingualism, a Study of Children Growing Up with Three Languages" dalam Espinosa, Tracey-Tokuhama.2003. "The Multilingual Mind: Issues Discussed By, For, and About People Living with Many Languages". Praeger Publishers.

2.. Hinton, Leanne. 1999. "Involuntary Language Loss Among Immigrants: Asian-American Linguistic Autobiographies." http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/involuntary.html.

3.. Kompas. 2007. "Indonesia Hadapi Ancaman Kepunahan Bahasa Daerah". http://www.kompas.com/kompas-cetak/0705/23/humaniora/3552295.htm.

4. Muslich, Masnur. 2006. "Bahasa Indonesia dan Era Globalisasi". http://re-searchengines.com/1006masnur.html.

5. Romano, Dugan. 2001. "Intercultural Marriage: Promises and Pitfalls". Nicholas Brealey Publishing/Intercultural Press.

6. Santos, Fernando. 2007. "Students Search for the Words to Go With Their Cultural Pride". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/nyregion/07heritage.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.

7. Sneddon, James. 2003. "The Indonesian Language, its History and Role in Modern Society". UNSW Press.