Statehood, language, and alphabet: a Kazakhstan case study
In: Central Asia and the Caucasus: journal of social and political studies, Heft 4/46, S. 144-152
ISSN: 1404-6091
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In: Central Asia and the Caucasus: journal of social and political studies, Heft 4/46, S. 144-152
ISSN: 1404-6091
World Affairs Online
In: The journal of North African studies, Band 21, Heft 3, S. 485-500
ISSN: 1362-9387
World Affairs Online
In: Journal of Southeast Asian studies, Band 46, Heft 1, S. 86-110
ISSN: 0022-4634
In the 1940s and 1950s, several organs of the newly independent Indonesian state oversaw the standardisation of the Indonesian national language. In this process, Western-oriented bureaucrats pushed the language towards European normativity, significantly decreasing the influence of Arabic. While this reform carried symbolic meaning, the practical ramifications on Indonesian orthography, spelling, and word selection also carried real, non-symbolic effects on the accessibility of this language to Indonesian Islamic leaders. Standardising orthography to use the Roman alphabet rendered many Muslims illiterate in a language they had been using for decades. Choices in word selection and spelling limited the Islamic meanings that the new language could carry, thus impacting how Muslims could use the national language for religious and other purposes. Indonesian linguistic reform carried serious social and political consequences in addition to the symbolic meanings often studied. (J Southeast Asian Stud/GIGA)
World Affairs Online