From: "John A. MacDougall" <apakabar@access.digex.net>
Subject: Safe Spelling
Forwarded message:
From owner-ids@suvm.acs.syr.EDU Thu Nov 18 03:15:25 1993
Message-Id: <199311180815.AA01578@access.digex.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 10:55:15 +1100
Reply-To: Indonesian Development Studies - Network <IDS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>
Sender: Indonesian Development Studies - Network <IDS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>
From: YUSUF HENUK <yhenuk@METZ.UNE.EDU.AU>
Subject: How to spell Indonesian names!.
X-To: IDS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU
To: Multiple recipients of list IDS <IDS@suvm.acs.syr.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199311170503.AA26980@metz.une.edu.au> from "Automatic digest
processor" at Nov 17, 93 00:04:35 am
My beloved Indonesians "who" would like to read the article,
The subject was related to an article written as follows =
Title : SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO SPELL, SOECKER?.
Author : David Jenkins.
Source : The Sydney Morning Herald,
Wednesday, November 17, 1993 - 13.
Sender : Yusuf L. Henuk.
Introduction: David Jenkins stumbles through an Indonesian language
thicket, where every innocent-looking briar has a
political thorn attached.
Content:
When the Indonesian Attorney-General's office formally banned a book
of nude photographs of Dewi Soekarno last week, it issued a statement
saying that distribution of the book might defame the good name of
"Haji Achmad Sukarno, the hero who proclaimed this nation's independence".
Talk about sloppy presentation of a case. The man who proclaimed Indonesian
independence had only one name - Sukarno. "Some stupid newspaperman once
wrote my first name was Achmed," the then President declared in his auto-
biography in 1965. "Ridiculous. name is not unusual in our society."
Down at the Attorney-General's office, where a years ago they burned 972
books by Indonesia's foremost novelist, on-one seems to have read the book
by the hero who proclaimed Indonesian independence.
According to legend, it was an enterprising correspondent from United Press
International who tagged Sukarno with the name Achmed (not Achmad, as the
Attorney-General would have it), to silence a desk-bound ignoramus at head
office who insisted that "everyone has two names". And so Achmed it became.
That egregious error notwithstanding, experience suggests that most Western
correspondents take great care to get Indonesian names and spellings right,
especially when it comes to an individual's preference for "oe" or "u" in
names like Sukarno, Soetrisno, Sutopo and Moerdani.
By way of contrast, some Indonesians adopt a charmingly cavalier, "she'll
be right" attitude. They will spell a name as Soetopo in one paragraph and
Sutopo in another. A man will be Jusuf one day, Joesoef the next, Yusuf the
third.
The only safe way through this minefield is to stick to the spelling used
by the person being quoted or mentioned. For example, the former Information
Minister Roeslan Abdulgani uses "oe" in his first name, "u" in his second.
As a child, Indonesia's first president spelt his name the Duth way-Soekarno.
But after the proclamation of independence in 1945 he ordered that the "oe"
spelling be changed to "u". Only one person was exempted-the President. It
was difficult, he wrote, "to change one's signature after 50 years, so when
I myself sign my name, I still write S-O-E".
With Sukarno's successor, we go through the orthographical looking glass.
President Soeharto insists that his name to be spelt the Dutch way, using
the "oe". How does he sign himself? More often than not he fudges, using
neither "oe" nor "u" but an oblique dash - "S/harto".
Soeharto, like Sukarno, has only one given name. But after making the pil-
grimage to Mecca he choose to become Haji Mohamad Soeharto. So while Achmed
Sukarno is wrong, Mohamad Soeharto is right.
Like many other Third World leaders, President Soeharto is worried about
creeping Westernisation and the spread of foreign words. But the President
may be living in a rumah kaca (glass house). During his time, Bahasa Indone-
sia has been "contaminated" by many Sanskrit and Javanese words.
Sanskrit, the basis of written Javanese, has a powerful hold over the priyayi,
the traditional bureaucratic elite of Java, perhaps because it evokes memories
of the great Hindu kingdoms of Majapahit and Sriwijaya.
President Sukarno was prepared to use the odd Sanskrit word to adress up a
doctrine; Pancasila, the five principles of the State ideology, is a case
in point.
But the practice has been carried to new heights under President Soeharto,
a man who, while proud of his modest social origins, has come to exemplify
priyayi values.
By the mid-1970s, Sanskrit words could be found throughout Indonesia - on
official State emblems, on parks and gardens, on office towers such as the
Graha Purna Yudha, on hotels like the Kartika Chandra.
In 1982, Sanskritisation came with a vengeance to the Indonesian Parlianment
(Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) and the People's Consultative Assembly (Majelis
Permusyawaratan Rakyat).
Those names - which are entitrely Arabic in origin - did not change. But mem-
bers of parlianment turned up one day to find that all the halls and rooms in
the assembly building words such as Grahatama, Lokawirasabha, Grahasabha Pari-
purna and Karnadana Samita.
Sanskrit had been chosen, an official explained, to "create an antique and
artistic impression". The fact that the language was little understood, he
added, with disarming frankness, "is another matter".
This did not go down well with some Indonesians. Thousands of words that
"smell Hindu" had penetrated the Indonesian language, the Islamic weekly
Panji Masyarakat complained in 1982. "What" it asked in an article dripp-
ing with sarcasm, "may be the Hindu word for 'toilet?"
The decision to push Sanskrit may have begun as an attempt to convey gravitas
and distinction, using sonorous and high-sounding words. But is was pretenti-
ous. The "new" words meant nothing to most Indonesians, even those with a
good education. And they dispalced perfectly good Indonesian words.
Then there is the use of Javanese. Early this month, two Indonesian scholars
complained that a process of "Javanisation" had destroyed the structure of
the Indonesian language.
The domestic political scene, they said, was dominated by Javanese who often
used Javanese expressions, Javanese symbolism and philosophy had seeped into
the bureaucracy and even into the armed forces.
There may be a message there for the President, whose Indonesian is peppered
with Javanese phrases and whose Indonesian-language autobiography has a 15-
page glossary of Javanese terms, for the edification of the 60 per cent of
the population that is not Javanese.
------------------------"Armidale, 18/11/93"--------------------------
P.S.: "Language is a form of human reason and has its reasons which
are unknown to man". (Claude Levi-Strauss, 1908 - ).