Language Expert of UIN Malang: Language Extinction Leads to Identity Loss

TIMESINDONESIA, MALANG – Local language is one of the language identities that should be maintained. This was said by the language expert of UIN Malang, Prof Mudji Raharjo, in Research on Linguistic subject to the 7th semester students at UIN Malang (17/10/2018).

According to him, if the society did not maintain its local language, which is also known as their mother tongue, they would not be able to identify themselves as any tribe or community.

 “How do we know which are Javanese people or Papuanese people? We know their identity from their language,” he said.

Prof Mudji added that it was a challenge to maintain the local languages in this globalization era, in which the society had another language to communicate, which was English language.

Therefore, Prof. Mudji said that we might use English in global world, but we had to maintain the local languages in our tribe or our local community. “Therefore, we will be able to maintain our identities,” he said.

The same thing was also said by the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, Prof. Dr. Yohana Susana Yembise, Dip. Apling, MA, in the Local Language Planning Meeting in Papua on Tuesday (16/10/2018).

This seminar also discussed about the strategy to maintain the local languages, especially Papuanese. Yohana and the tribal council were concerned about the extinction of Papuanese language because the local residents in Papua rarely used Papuanese language. (*)

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