The Nationalist Bintang Hindia is the one of the first signs of the emergence of a nationalist consciousness.

It was the appearance in 1902 of the fortnightly newspaper Bintang Hindia (The Indies Star). The other is From Jong Java, 1915. It was the largest youth organisation. The concept of a unitary state comprising the whole of the Dutch East Indies began to take shape and, from 1918 onward, this was increasingly referred to as Indonesia. Many among the young intellectuals lived in the Netherlands as students. There they functioned as one social group and among them consciousness of a common identity, that of being Indonesian, developed. Periodicals and associations that provided for single ethnic groups failed to gain any significant support, but the Perhimpunan Indonesia (Indonesian Association), which embraced all ethnic groups, was fully supported by the students. Through their journal Indonesia Merdeka (Free Indonesia) they began to express their aspirations for an independent and unitary nation. In 1927, Sukarno and other young nationalists formed Jong Indonesie, renamed Pemuda Indonesia (Indonesian Youth) the same year, choosing to use Malay as their working language. In the same year, Sukarno founded the Partai Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Party), which accelerated the growing sense of unity. The use of Malay by the nationalists became a way of expressing their nationalistic beliefs and also facilitated the spread of their ideas from Java to the other islands. Recognising this, Sukarno said that the sooner Malay became widespread the sooner independence would be achieved. At the First Indonesian Youth Congress, held in Batavia from 30 April to 2 May 1926, the poet and radical nationalist Muhammad Yamin described the future possibilities for a national language. He stated that, in his opinion, of all the languages in Indonesia only two, Malay and Javanese, had any prospect of becoming the language of unity. He said he was convinced that it was Malay that would gradually become the language of wider communication and unity for the Indonesian people, and that Indonesian culture in future would find expression in the Malay language. It is an interesting comment on the attitudes and practices of the nationalists that Yamin, like all the speakers at the congress, was speaking in Dutch! Mohamad Tabrani, one of the organisers of the congress, later wrote that he did not like the term Malay for the language of unity. He informed Yamin that if there was to be one nation, Indonesia, and one people, Indonesians, then if there was to be one language, it should be called Indonesian: bahasa Indonesia, not bahasa Melayu. Yamin agreed with Tabrani, but they decided that a choice of name for the language should be deferred and put forward at the Second Indonesian Youth Congress.

THE SECOND INDONESIAN YOUTH CONGRESS AND THE SUMPAH PEMUDA

The Second Indonesian Youth Congress was held in Batavia on 2728 October 1928. In the first session, Yamin, the secretary of the congress, stated that Malay had been transformed into Indonesian and was producing a sense of unity in the multiethnic society. The reporter Soepratman was given permission to play a melody he had recently composed on the violin. The tune, Indonesia Raya (Great Indonesia), was to become the national anthem of independent Indonesia. (Soepratman was not allowed to sing the words he had composed, as the session chairman was afraid that the police would intervene.) Following Soepratmans performance, the chairman read the draft resolution that subsequently became known as the Sumpah Pemuda (The Youth Pledge also sometimes translated The Oath of theYouth). The Sumpah Pemuda is as follows: Pertama: Kami putera dan puteri Indonesia mengaku bertumpah darah yang satu, Tanah Indonesia. Kedua: Kami putera dan puteri Indonesia mengaku berbangsa yang satu, Bangsa Indonesia. Ketiga: Kami putera dan puteri Indonesia menjunjung bahasa persatuan, Bahasa Indonesia. (which congress delegates, many of whom had only poor Malay, would hardly have formulated.) The new name bahasa Indonesia was not immediately taken up by all groups in the community. It was not used in the press until 1933 and conservative school teachers, who regarded modernising tendencies in the language with despair, refused to use it. The question is often asked, what kind of Malay were the delegates at the Second Indonesian Youth Congress thinking of when they renamed the language. One writer observes: At that time they themselves were obviously more concerned with the cause of politi cal unity than with the problem of the variation in their usage of Malay. Nevertheless, the oath itself is in High Malay, as shown by the use of the formal word kami (we), which almost never occurs in the colloquial language, the refined Sanskrit-derived putra (sons) and putri (daughters), and the formal verbal prefix men(g)-. It is obvious that this style was recognised as the only variety suitable for such an important statement, particularly one that was first written. Its association with education, as School Malay, and in literature, as published by Balai Pustaka, had already established High Malay as the appropriate variety for formal situations.

WHY MALAY? It is sometimes erroneously stated that Malay was chosen because it was simple and easy to learn. Thought some argue that it is for politic purposes. Malay was the native language of only about 5 per cent of the people of the Dutch East Indies in 1928; that is, the people of those areas of Sumatra, off-shore islands and parts of Kalimantan where traditional Malay was the vernacular. Native speakers of post-creole forms of Malay, especially in the east but also in Jakarta, did not add substantially to this number. The fact that native speakers were such a small percentage of the population meant that, unlike Javanese, Malay was not seen as a threat to the cultures of other ethnic groups; Malay speakers could in no way be regarded as an assertive majority. Most people did not think of it as the language of a particular ethnic group at all; one writer has commented on its almost statusless character, like Esperanto tied to no particular regional social structure. It was also the principal language of inter-ethnic communication and trade throughout the archipelago and the language of education, at least of lower education, the most that the majority of people could aspire to. It had also become the language of literature, in every variety from the Low Malay of some newspapers and fiction to the High Malay Balai Pustaka novels. The unique position of Malay can be seen also from the fact that in 1918, at the urging of indigenous members, the newly opened Volksraad, the Peoples Council, agreed to Malay being recognised as an official language along with Dutch for the purpose of debate within the council. In short, Malay was seen as the only language that could act as a unifying force between the many ethnic groups in the archipelago. When the young nationalists recognised Malay as the basis for the future national language, the lack of opposition or even scepticism was extraordinary. The more so because most realised that it was not yet a suitable vehicle for communicating about a great many aspects of modern life, that in fact it was not yet ready to be the unifying language of a multilingual nation in the modern world. The choice of Malay was received as if it were the most natural thing; very few debates about its advantages and disadvantages seem to have occurred. Despite later suggestions that Javanese had been a contender for national language, its drawbacks were so obvious that it is probable that very few people gave it serious consideration. Indonesia, unlike India, was thus spared a great deal of strife over the choice of a national language. The choice of Malay proved to be the best decision for the unity of the future nation. The are some reason of Indonesian to did not choose Dutch. It was the language of the colonial power against whom the nationalists were struggling for independence. There was thus an important psychological barrier to its acceptance; national pride was against it. And although it was the usual language of communication among the educated elite, they were a very small minority of the entire population. There were two major factors working against the acceptance of Javanese. First, it was the language of one particular ethnic group. The fact that this was the largest ethnic group was actually a hindrance to its acceptance; it would be seen as giving significant advantages to native

speakers, already the most powerful and, many non-Javanese would say, most advantaged ethnic group, in terms of education and other opportunities. This would cause resentment among speakers of other languages and would hence work against national unity rather than for it, just as attempts in India to have Hindi, the language of the largest ethnic group, adopted as the national language led to bitter opposition from speakers of other languages. The second disadvantage had to do with the nature of the Javanese language itself and its intimate connection with traditional Javanese culture. Javanese society was rigidly hierarchical, with an aristocracy at the top and the mass of peasants at the bottom. A persons behaviour in any social situation, including their choice of language style, was strictly determined by their social relationship to those with whom they were interacting. Javanese is often said to be the supreme example of a language that expresses social relationship between speaker and addressee, possessing, among other things, an elaborate set of vocabularies for addressing people of higher rank. The two major social levels have their own names. Ngoko low style is the familiar style, used among equals where there is solidarity and by superiors to inferiors. Krama is the high style, used by inferiors to superiors or among equals without solidarity. Vocabulary differences between Ngoko and Krama are illustrated by the following short example, in which every meaning unit (morpheme) is different: Ngoko: Aku ora ng-erti jeneng- Krama: Kula mboten mang-ertos asma-nipun I negative know name-his I dont know his name.