The Influence of Dutch in Bahasa Indonesia (2)

The Influence of Dutch in Bahasa Indonesia (2)


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


In early borrowings, final clusters were removed, either by the addition of a vowel, as in lampu (lamp) and pompa (pump), or dropping of the final consonant, as in pos (post) and ban (tyre — \Dutch band). Complex clusters could be removed by both adding a vowel and dropping the final consonant, as in dinas (service — Dutch dienst). Clusters later became acceptable, especially in the pronunciation
of those fluent in Dutch, with words such as pers (press) and helm (helmet) entering the language. Much inconsistency occurs in acceptance of features of Dutch phonology, as it does in spontaneous borrowing from other languages.Thus the final rs is retained in kurs (currency rate — Dutch koers), but avoided by the addition of a vowel in bursa (stock exchange — Dutch beurs).

In traditional Malay, the mid-central schwa vowel could not appear in word-final syllables, whether open or closed by a consonant. While the schwa vowel entered in closed syllables under the influence of Javanese and Jakarta Malay, its acceptability was strengthened by borrowings from Dutch, such as liter (litre) and wortel (carrot). Moreover, borrowings from Dutch introduced word-final schwa, as in the suffix -isme, and various common words, like tante (aunt), orde (order, regime) and kode (code). Alisjahbana pleaded against this, strongly disagreeing with the change to the traditional Malay phonological system, and insisting on writing a instead of e in final syllables, such as koda, nasionalisma. In this he was unsuccessful; the change has become entirely accepted in the standard language.

Traditional Malay had a pattern of vowel harmony whereby, among other things, a high vowel (i, u) could not occur in a final syllable if a mid-vowel (e, o) occurred in the preceding syllable and a mid-vowelcould not occur in the final syllable if there was a high vowel in the second ast syllable. This system has disappeared in the modern language, partly as a result of borrowing from Dutch, with words  like vonis (punish) and tenis (tennis) breaking the rule.

With the increase in bilingualism, educated Indonesians tended to retain more features of Dutch phonology. In more recent borrowings, f is retained, rather than being replaced by p, as in fraksi (faction — in a political party or in parliament). The Dutch v is replaced by f rather than p (although the letter v is retained in writing), as in veto (veto).

Some borrowings, earlier pronounced and spelt with p, have now replaced this by f, with f or v retained in spelling, as in the Dutch. Thus earlier Nopember (November) was replaced by November. Uneducated speakers are still likely to use p instead of f in these words. In borrowings of scientific words with initial ps, the spelling of the original is retained, although the p is not pronounced; for example, psikologi (psychology) and psikiater (psychiatrist). One-syllable words did not occur in traditional Malay, apart from a few function words like dan (and) and ke (to). Early borrowings sometimes added a final vowel, such as buku (book). However, a considerable number of common Dutch words of one syllable were later accepted into the language, such as pet (cap), lap (cleaning cloth) and got (gutter, drain).

In borrowing from Dutch, the tendency has been to follow the pronunciation of the original where possible and to modify spelling of the word accordingly, as in numerous examples already given. In some cases, the spelling change to reflect pronunciation is more drastic. This is particularly common where the Dutch word is itself a borrowing from French, Dutch having retained French spelling, as in
kudeta (coup d’état — Dutch coup d’etat),
kado (gift — Dutch cadeau) and  
koran (newspaper — Dutch courant).

By the mid-1960s, Dutch had almost entirely been replaced by English as a source of innovations in the language. The 1983 wordlist thus could well be regarded as a definitive listing of Dutch borrowings; borrowing from Dutch was by then a thing of the past. On the other hand, the influence of English was really only beginning in the 1960s and has been accelerating since then.

The 1983 study did not take into consideration Dutch borrowings into other than Standard Indonesian. In those regional varieties of Malay where a significant proportion of the population had long had access to Dutch education, many Dutch words occur in everyday speech that are unknown in the standard language. As one example, Manado Malay has many Dutch words in common use, such as:
fakansi holiday (Dutch vakantie)
fals dishonest (Dutch vals)
forek fork (Dutch vork)
ram window (Dutch raam)

Besides contributing numerous words directly to the language, Dutch has also been the source of many loan translations, Indonesian phrases created on the basis of Dutch models. These include:
kerja sama co-operate (Dutch samenwerking)
luar negeri overseas (literally ‘outside the country’ —Dutch buitenland)
mengambil take over (Dutch overnemen) alih
rumah sakit hospital (literally ‘sick house’ — Dutch ziekenhuis)

A number of new suffixes have entered the language through borrowing from Dutch. When words containing affixes (which are called prefixes if they precede the base and suffixes if they follow the base) are first borrowed, they are usually taken over as single meaningful units in the recipient language. Frequently, Indonesian borrowed two or more related forms from Dutch, such as aktif (active) and aktivis (activist), popular (popular) and popularitas (popularity).

While Indonesians using such words are aware of their similarities in form and meaning, it is not always possible to identify a base form for members of such sets nor to identify particular parts as affixes. When, however, a beginning or ending of a word comes to be used with a variety of different forms that can stand alone, it takes on the status of a prefix or suffix. This has happened with a number of Dutch affixes, including -isme, borrowed as a part of words like nasionalisme (nationalism). This has now become an assimilated Indonesian suffix because it can be applied to new bases, as in sukuisme (tribalism — suku ‘tribe, ethnic group’). The Dutch noun-forming endings -atie, pronounced ‘atsi’, and -isatie were retained as -(is)asi in numerous borrowings, such as nasionalisasi (nationalisation).

This has become a particularly ‘successful’ suffix, replacing the Dutch -(iser)ing in words like modernisasi (modernisation — Dutch modernisering) and later replacing the English ending ‘-ation’ in words like ekstensifikasi (extensification). The Dutch adjective-forming ending -isch was retained in borrowings as -is, as in dinamis (dynamic) and dramatis (dramatic). A number of words were borrowed with the Dutch suffix -teit, but these were later replaced by their original Latin forms with the suffix -tas, such as universitas (university — Dutch universiteit) and kualitas (quality — Dutch kwaliteit).

As already mentioned, Dutch has also played an enormous role in the development of syntax in the formal language, through the influence of educated bilinguals. In writing, this includes the development of more complex sentence structure and paragraph organisation. It also resulted in a significant shift from passive to active constructions. This trend continued under the influence of English.