Indonesia’s linguistic legacy is increasingly under threat as growing numbers of wealthy and upper-middle-class families shun public schools where Indonesian remains the main language but English is often taught poorly. They are turning, instead, to private schools that focus on English and devote little time, if any, to Indonesian.
For some Indonesians, as mastery of English has become increasingly tied to social standing, Indonesian has been relegated to second-class status. In extreme cases, people take pride in speaking Indonesian poorly.
The government recently announced that it would require all private schools to teach the nation’s official language to its Indonesian students by 2013. Details remain sketchy, though.
See: The New York Times
Comments about this article
Австралия
Local time: 02:12
английский => индонезийский
+ ...
Currently it is the hundreds of regional languages of Indonesia that stand a greater threat of extinction. ▲ Collapse
Испания
Local time: 18:12
Член ProZ.com c 2005
английский => испанский
+ ...
Political action and enforcement can only be pebble in the wheels of this trend, and a disturbingly expensive one as well. I think we must accept that minority languages w... See more
Political action and enforcement can only be pebble in the wheels of this trend, and a disturbingly expensive one as well. I think we must accept that minority languages will be on the losing side unless populations get isolated and split again, something that does not seem very likely. Changes that happen naturally are like water: you cannot stop them. It was that way with isolated populations and a much smaller population in the world, and it is that way today with a big, interconnected human population.
On the opposite side, political action and enforcement to protect, promote, and finally impose minority languages to a population are like petrol: as soon as the petrol is gone, the motor will immediately stop.
[Edited at 2010-07-28 08:11 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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