Five Decades of Kompas’ Dedication to Language

KOMPAS/FAJAR RAMADHAN

Kompas wins an award for Dedicated Print Media at the 2019 Language and Literature Month\'s Peak Event. The award was given by the head of the Language and Book Development Agency of the Education and Culture Ministry, Dadang Sunendar (right) to the Deputy Editor in Chief of Kompas, Tri Agung Kristanto (left) in Jakarta, Monday (28/10/2019).

The press is a public reference and example for the proper and correct use of the Indonesian language. For five decades, the Kompas daily has played a role in preserving the national language of bahasa Indonesia.

Amid the many mistakes in the use of the Indonesian language, the mass media plays an important role in correcting, preserving and developing the national language. For five decades, the Kompas daily has contributed to maintaining and developing the Indonesian language through its wide-ranging coverage of various sectors.

Language represents a nation. Indonesian has also played a part in unifying the nation. However, not all segments of society speak Indonesian properly and correctly.

Foreign languages are frequently mixed in with their speech. The reasons vary, ranging from job purposes to common practice in social intercourse.

Some circles in society do not speak purely in bahasa Indonesia in daily conversation. Foreign languages are frequently mixed in with their speech. The reasons vary, ranging from job purposes to common practice in social intercourse.

According to Hariyono, the former acting chief of the Pancasila Ideology Development Agency while speaking at the Eleventh Congress of Bahasa Indonesia (KBI) in 2018, said that this phenomenon reflected the lack of self-confidence in the national mindset; whereas, in his view, language was born from the cultural roots of a nation.

Cultural studies professor I.B. Putera Manuaba of Airlangga University noted in his essay (Kompas, 27/10/2018) of the important place bahasa Indonesia had in history. It has been recorded that the Youth Pledge on 28 Oct. 1928 declared the commitment of youth to preserving bahasa Indonesia.

Bahasa Indonesia is established as the nation’s official language in Article 36 Chapter XV of the 1945 Constitution. Several decades before this, the Indonesian language was born and grew out of a sense of national awareness, and was recognized on 20 May 1908 as a unifying language steeped in the values of nationalism.

The concerns over public conscience on speaking good and correct bahasa Indonesia has been a long-standing one. In the past, after the declaration of Indonesian independence, the government and linguists devoted their efforts to encouraging the people to speak bahasa Indonesia.

Kompas

A number of students from various backgrounds enrolled in the Indonesian Language program at the University of Washington in Seattle, United States, Friday (11/4/2016), look at Indonesian-language newspapers in the campus library. Reading newspapers facilitates the mastery of Indonesian.

The challenge then was that a large number of the populace spoke their regional languages in daily conversation. Furthermore, in the Dutch colonial era, the use of Malay, the linguistic origin of bahasa Indonesia, was replaced by Dutch. Bahasa Indonesia was only confirmed as the national language during the Japanese imperial occupation, partly because Japan wanted to eliminate the Dutch (Kompas, 30/10/1972).

The challenges in the use of bahasa Indonesia has changed as the nation has developed. The Indonesian language now faced the influence of the many foreign languages that are increasingly spoken, mixed into daily conversation.

Role of the press

Different attempts have been made to preserve and protect the use of bahasa Indonesia. One of the most effective methods has been to maintain and develop the national language through the mass media.

The press, with its various outlets and mediums, has become a reference and model for society on the proper and correct use of bahasa Indonesia in daily speech. The press also plays a role in disseminating and popularizing Indonesian vocabulary, including synonyms and new terms and phrases. In this way, the press is called upon to fulfill this role in using bahasa Indonesia properly and correctly in their coverage.

Indonesian linguist J.S. Badudu once said: “Journalists have far greater influence than linguists, especially in the dissemination of new words or phrases.”

He referred to the example of canggih (sophisticated), a word that was first introduced by a linguist at TVRI, but failed to gain warm welcome among the public. Yet, when print journalists started using the word in their newspaper articles, the word grew in popularity and went “viral”. (Kompas, 5/9/1988).

For example, the root word utang (debt) was constantly misspelled as hutang in the mass media, and led to the Language Center to include the erroneous hutang on its list of new words.

Badudu also warned that, considering the major role the mass media played in linguistic preservation and development, erroneous usage in the press could lead to the public replicating the same error. For example, the root word utang (debt) was constantly misspelled as hutang in the mass media, and led to the Language Center to include the erroneous hutang on its list of new words.

The substantial vocabulary and terminology in use by the mass media are also used as source material, data and references in compiling dictionaries. This also connects to the mass media’s role in circulating new terms, foreign phrases or specific words.

If the words or terms have no equivalent in bahasa Indonesia, lexicographers will include them as new entries, along with their definitions as used in the press, in the dictionaries they compile.

In this manner, the public then starts using the Indonesian equivalents of these new words and phrases as they have been officially defined. The mass media certainly assists in this progression as an agent of information.

Kompas’ efforts

Despite their significant role in the development of bahasa Indonesia, members of the press are still often careless in their use of good and correct Indonesian in their writing. Journalists are always racing against time and (in the past) limited column space in newspapers for their articles. The news they present should be brief, concise and use simple language.

Kompas/Priyombodo

The Youth Pledge Museum in Senen, Central Jakarta, Sunday (7/6/2020). The Youth Congress II was a milestone in the integrity and unity of the Indonesian nation.

Moreover, in today’s digital era, online media are under the demand to provide information as quickly as possible. Not infrequently, this gives rise to errors in writing and language use that can give rise to misunderstanding and misperception among readers.

The Kompas daily is aware of the role of the press in the development and use of bahasa Indonesia, as well as the challenges this poses. So, it set up the Kompas Language Team in the 1970s to monitor and maintain the use of bahasa Indonesia across all materials and mediums.

According to Kompas former Deputy General Manager St. Sularto in Dari Katabelece Sampai Kakus (From a Memo to the Toilet), the Kompas Language Team monitored the use of bahasa

Indonesia and foreign terms in Kompas’ printed articles. The team submitted its notes on a biweekly basis to the heads of editorial desks for discussing at their weekly meetings.

The team also compiled vocabulary and the names of countries and cities in a guideline published as Buku Pintar Wartawan Kompas (Kompas Journalists Guidebook). In 2003, the team published a second edition of the Guidebook that was updated to include dubious words and computer terms.

Kompas’ attentiveness to the use of bahasa Indonesia also involved inviting linguists to correct and review the language used in the daily newspaper.

Language and linguistic specialists like Prof. J.S. Badudu, Hasan Alwi, Harimurti Kridalaksana, Felicia N. Utorodewo, Lie Charlie, Sudjoko, Bambang Kaswanti Purwo, Soenjono Dardjowidjojo and Anton Moeliono once served as consultants to Kompas.

Language section

Apart from actively reviewing language usage in its articles, Kompas also formed a special language section. Three years after Kompas was first published in 1968, it introduced its Kamus Pembatja (Readers’ Dictionary) column.

Readers were also invited to send in their own questions or to request a more complete explanation of certain foreign words, so that the column could host a space for linguistic discussion.

The column was dedicated to discussing the foreign words that frequently appeared in Indonesian newspapers. The column’s inaugural publication discussed the words rehabilitasi, stabilisasi, and konsolidasi. Readers were also invited to send in their own questions or to request a more complete explanation of certain foreign words, so that the column could host a space for linguistic discussion.

On 17 July 1968, Kompas introduced another section dedicated to bahasa Indonesia. The first piece published in Santun Bahasa (Polite Language) was penned by Anton Moeliono, who examined the use of the suffixes -i and -kan.

The section reviewed the grammar and style of bahasa Indonesia as presented by a University of Indonesia literature lecturer and an official at the Directorate of Language and Literature.

As it developed, the section was renamed Bahasa Kita (Our Language) under Alfons Taryadi, who was also the first writer to discuss sentence use in Jakarta newspapers in their articles on the boxing match between Mohammad Ali and Ken Norton.

This section was not restricted to contributions from Kompas language observers and linguists, and members of the public could also respond to or comment on the linguistic analyses it presented. Although it disappeared for some time, the section reappeared on 2 Aug. 1993 in the Language Column written by Harimurti Kridalaksana.

Discussions about language were no longer limited to just experts, and the greater community of language observers often contributes to the Language Column. This section continues to be published in Kompas to date.

Besides the language section, Kompas also provides space on its Opinion pages for public views and responses on word and language use. It also maintains its dedication to the Indonesian language by providing space for literary works from the public.

Kompas also offers language education through its Kompas Muda (Young Kompas) online edition by presenting root words and their meanings, Indonesian equivalents of foreign words and correct word use. Through this media, it hopes that the younger generation will learn about the proper and correct.use of bahasa Indonesia.

The conscientious efforts that Kompas has made in maintaining and preserving the Indonesian language have been fruitful. In the culmination of the 2019 Language and Literature Month, Kompas won the award for “print media dedicated to the use of bahasa Indonesia“ from the Language and Publishing Development Agency of the Education and Culture Ministry.

This award for dedication to bahasa Indonesia is the third for Kompas, which also received the same award in 2017 and 2018. Kompas has also been awarded as the “best bahasa Indonesia in print media” three times.

These awards do not merely reflect Kompas‘ success in caring for the Indonesian language. They are also expected to motivate and invigorate Kompas‘ spirit in continuing its commitment to preserving the language of national unification. (KOMPAS R&D)