The Influence of Dutch in Bahasa Indonesia (1)

The Influence of Dutch in Bahasa Indonesia (1)


Written by James Sneddon in The Indonesian Language, Its History and Role in Modern Society. Sydney: UNSW.2003.pp.160-167.


Although the Dutch first appeared in the archipelago at the beginning of the 17th century, their language did not begin to have a noticeable influence until much later. In the Moluccas and in Batavia, attempts by the Dutch to use their language in church services, in schools and in administration had little success. After a brief attempt in the Moluccas,Dutch was replaced by Malay in school teaching and in religious services; in Batavia it was replaced by Portuguese and Malay.

The English grammarian William Marsden noted in 1812 that ‘several Dutch terms’ had been adopted into Malay, presumably as indication of very limited penetration at that time. Dutch did not begin to have a significant influence on Malay until the beginning of the 20th  century, when children of the Indonesian gentry began entering European schools and Dutch was also introduced as a subject at training colleges for native teachers and pubic servants. With growing demand among the Indonesian elite for Dutch education and limited places available for them in European schools, Dutch-language native schools were established in 1914. With improving means of long distance travel, a greater number of Europeans began to enter Indonesia, resulting in greater Western influence on society. This led to further demand for Dutch language among the small Indonesian elite, among whom knowledge of the language was becoming the mark of status, particularly as the opportunity for Dutch education was largely confined to the higher class.

Proficiency in Dutch also opened the door to well-paid jobs in commerce and administration, and command of Dutch was the gateway to European culture.28 By 1930, about 230000 Indonesians spoke Dutch, increasing to about 400 000 with command of the language in 1941, although this was less than 1 per cent of the total Indies population.

There thus emerged a sizeable bilingual population among the educated leaders of pre-war indigenous society. For many of them, Dutch was their preferred language and, when speaking Indonesian, the use of Dutch words was a symbol of prestige and social status. Use of Dutch words was also a necessity for many topics, there being no suitable Malay words for discussing politics, economics and science.

Before 1942, many Dutch words entered the language spontaneously, without deliberate selection, through such bilingualism. From the beginning of formal language planning, with the Komisi Bahasa in 1942, a number of Dutch words also entered through the language planning process. After independence, Dutch remained the major source for scientific and technical terms under the Terminology Commission until 1966, although most of the terms selected were not taken up by the population in general. Many more words entered spontaneously in various domains of everyday life, because they were used by the educated elite in their spoken and written Indonesian  and were spread by the press.

After independence, Dutch was no longer a medium of instruction in education and there was pride among Indonesians in having their own national language. Nevertheless, the use of Dutch among the educated continued and retained a prestige status. In the 1960s, there was still a substantial population of proficient speakers of the language; a study of Indonesian students in the USA, carried out in 1962, found that 20 of the group of 26 had at least some facility in Dutch.30 One writer stated in 1979 that ‘the Dutch-educated generation is dead, dying or about to be pensioned off’.31 Despite such exaggerated claims, even at the beginning of the 21st century there was a surprising number of educated people in the older age group, those who had had a Dutch education up to 1949 or had had the opportunity of tertiary study in the Netherlands in the 1950s, who were fluent in the language.

Nevertheless, by the late 1950s educated Indonesians were beginning to turn to English. By the mid-1960s, Dutch influence on Indonesian was drawing to a close as the influence of English began to grow rapidly. Among early borrowings from Dutch were kantor (office), kamar (room), and buku (book).  As Dutch customs were introduced, Dutch words were frequently employed. For instance, Dutch influence on cooking and eating habits resulted in such items as:
buncis beans
kol cabbage
kompor stove
poding pudding
sosis sausage
wortel carrot

Items of clothing include:
helm helmet
hem shirt
kerah collar (Dutch kraag)
piama pyjamas
ritsleting zipper
rok skirt
selop slipper (Dutch slof)

The Indonesian legal system is based on that of the Netherlands and many legal terms are Dutch, such as:
advokat lawyer
kasasi overturning of judgment
kasus case
pleidoi defence
vonis sentence
yuris law graduate

In other areas of modern life introduced by the Dutch, such as medicine and education, there has also been significant borrowing. In technical areas also, many terms are Dutch, including electrical terms such as:
listrik electricity
per light bulb
steker electrical plug
stop kontak socket
strom current

A great many words to do with motor vehicles are Dutch, including:
bensin petrol
klakson horn
kopling clutch
oli lubricating oil
persneling, versneling gear
rem brake

In many spheres of everyday life, Dutch has intruded. The common words for ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’ were largely replaced by om (Dutch oom) and tante, particularly as terms of address. Among a great many everyday words are:
antre queue (Dutch aantreden ‘line up’)
asbak ashtray
gelas (drinking) glass
handuk towel
pamili, famili relatives, (extended) family
restoran restaurant
setrika iron
televisi television

The names of the months, Januari, Februari and so on, are all from Dutch.Earlier borrowings tended to be modified to fit with Malay phonology and syllable structure. Thus Dutch f and v were replaced by p: fabriek became pabrik (factory) and koffer became kopor, koper (box,suitcase). The Dutch sound spelt u or uu is a high front rounded vowel that does not exist in Indonesian and borrowings with this sound generally omitted the lip rounding, leaving i, as in bis (bus — Dutch bus) and setir (steering wheel — Dutch stuur). In traditional Malay there were few consonant clusters, these comprising word-medial nasal-stop clusters like mp, nt, ngk, and r plus another consonant, such as in pernah (ever). While borrowing from Javanese introduced numerous consonant clusters, Dutch also contributed to their acceptance, introducing initial clusters, as in stabil (stable) and skripsi (thesis), and medial clusters as in pabrik (factory) and doktrin (doctrine). Medial clusters of even four consonants have been introduced, as in eksplorasi (exploration).

(to be continued)