Babel by Gaston Dorren

Author:Gaston Dorren [Dorren, Gaston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802146724
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2018-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

9: Malay

The one that won

Linguistic diversity is great, except when you’re in the business of running a country. Being in power, you want your citizens to understand each other. Or if not each other, at least your orders. However, in nearly all countries on earth, people speak several different languages. Back in the days when being the boss was practically synonymous with collecting taxes, this wasn’t a problem – a taxman would have his methods, and words were not of the essence. In the modern world, however, mutual comprehension is essential.

What’s more, a shared language creates a sense of allegiance. Social cohesion can be strengthened in many ways: a common enemy, a pervasive religion or ideology, universal conscription, state propaganda, a national myth, unique traditions and so forth. But as identity markers go, few are as potent as a common language. Indeed, marking identity is what language does best: as a means of communication, our speaking and writing can go badly awry at times, but we’re all experts in spotting accents, words and other linguistic traits that set people off from our own group. A national language, or even just a national variant (Australian English, Austrian German) works wonders in defining where we belong.

If communication and national identity are potential headaches for every country with more than one language, imagine the problems faced by Indonesia. Its population of 265 million people, spread across nearly a thousand inhabited islands, speak over 700 different languages, more than any other nation in the world except neighbouring Papua New Guinea. But here’s a surprise: whatever Indonesia’s problems since independence – and they have been both numerous and serious – language has not figured among them to any appreciable degree. Early in the twentieth century, the nationalist movement declared Malay to be the national language, and after independence in the later 1940s, this was accepted without a murmur. Over the past seven decades, it has been learnt by the majority of the population.*

Not all countries have been so blessed by fortune or their leaders’ foresight. Sri Lanka, China, Belgium and Pakistan, for example, have seen persistent, even violent conflict along linguistic lines. This is not to imply that language has been the only or even the fundamental issue. In tense political situations, there is always more at stake, such as economic, religious and political antagonisms. What language has to offer is a convenient line along which trenches can be dug. In numerous countries, language has played its nation-building role imperfectly, poorly, or not at all.

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