SUNDANESE LANGUAGE SURVIVAL AMONG INDONESIAN DIASPORA FAMILIES IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Akhmad Bukhori Muslim

Abstract


Most migrant families living anywhere in the world, are concerned with maintaining their ethnic
language, in order to sustain a sense of belonging to the country of their origin and enable
extended family harmony. This study explores the survival of Sundanese language among eight
Indonesian families of West Java origin (Sundanese speakers) living permanently in Melbourne,
Australia. Most of these families migrated to Australia in the 1950s as Colombo Plan scholars
and unskilled labourers. Semi-structured interviews and home observations showed that, despite
believing in the importance of Sundanese language in their diasporic life, speaking Sundanese
is the only practice that most of the participating parents, can do to maintain their language,
alongside Bahasa Indonesia and English, to show they belong to the Sundanese culture. However,
Sundanese language levels of politeness limit its use among their Australia-born second generation,
making this ethnic language unlikely to survive. The young people only understand and copy a
few routine words of greetings and short instructions. The study also suggests that the parents
needed to be accommodative in order to maintain the Sundanese language by combining it with
English and Bahasa Indonesia.
Key words: Sundanese language maintenance, Indonesian diaspora, parental advice and values


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/ije.v8i2.5316

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