Language

Language showing the nation

Language is the identity of ethnic and social background and also language is used for media of communication.

The function of language is included in the short phrase of classic proverb like “The language showing the nation”. We can see the good or bad character of human with his word when they speak.

Although, Indonesia claimed that Indonesian language is uniting language, Indonesia didn’t still ignore the traditional language spreading in this country. The traditional language can add many vocabularies for Indonesian language and become a part of the Indonesia culture.

However, we aware that many Indonesian people usually use foreign language in their daily activities. Moreover, in the young generation, for competition in the era of globalization, they always study about foreign language without matching to study their mother language.

Ironically, many children are cleaver to speak foreign language than Indonesian language. Moreover, they understand that their traditional language becomes character of themselves. 

In 1999, UNESCO has determined the 21st of February is international mother language day. It is to promote local language and understand multiculturalism and multilingualism−ability to speak a lot of language. In addition, this date is also become as the day of the unification of Dhaka University students and the societies, when Bangladesh is still a part of the Pakistan in 1952.

At that time, the demonstrators are dominated by Bengali ethnic struggling for their mother language−Bengalian language− as one of the official language of Pakistan. This demonstration had caused victims who died, before local government passed the Urdu language as one of the official language at Pakistan.

When the Bengalian people sacrificed their lives to show their mother language, what about us? Have we learn our mother language and introduce to our children?

Translated from (ADT)