Bahasa Indonesia (was: One language for the world

    Tom Wier wrote:
>I am not familiar with the details of the case, but I have to ask:  to what
extent
>was the language already _de facto_ an auxiliary language? >
        As John Cowan points out in his post, "Bazaar Malay" was the lingua
franca for centuries. (Mainly trade and inter-regional political dealings;
doubtful whether it was written very much.)  But it was a very simplified
form of peninsular Malay, with many local variants, especially in the East
(Ambonese-- "Spice Islands"area)   The need to develop a more standardized,
writeable, form probably arose in the mid/late 19th Cent., as the Dutch
began to achieve more control over the outlying areas and instituted a real
civil service; missionaries began to set up local schools; etc. By pre-WW2,
writers began using Ml/BI. The pseudo-independence that resulted from the
Japanese occupation (welcomed _at first_ by the nationalists) probably
helped spread the use of this standardized (and almost always Romanized)
version.

 >I know that Indonesia's
>population is heavily conecentrated in the Western reaches of the
archipelago, Java
>and Sumatra and such.  If the language was already common in those areas,
it becomes
>relatively easy for one heavily populous region of the country to dominate
the others
>(cf. Kissinger's theory of hegemonic state systems).>
        The interesting thing is that Ml (or what became BI) was the native
language of _almost noone_ in Indonesia, but it was the 2nd lang. of most
educated people, and Bazaar Malay was well known (and still is, though
you're marked as provincial if you use it).  Javanese was far and away the
majority language, but only amongst the Javanese, and for various reasons
was not, I think, even considered as a national language-- that would surely
have been viewed as arrogant and imperialistic by all non-Javanese.  So the
decision to adopt BI was almost inevitable, and as it turns out, successful.
Timor-Leste seems disinclined to continue using it officially, but if
Indonesia should break up into several large regions, BI will probably
continue to be the tie that binds.  If it (foolishly, IMHO) breaks into
small, very ethnically oriented mini-states, then I suppose all bets are
off.

(snip...)
>Do you mean in _A Study of History_?  I have that on my shelf, but haven't
>gotten around to reading it yet.  Is there any part you suggest?>
        Yes; and the brief answer is:  all of it ;-))   If you have the
2-vol. version, not such a difficult read.  If the 11 hefty paperbacks,
well...  Vol 1 will give an idea of what he's generally about, and it's
possible to skim thru the others till you light on something that interests
you. There are longeurs, but generally it's elegantly written, sometimes
quite personal, and a remarkable life's work, synthesis from pre-history to
modern (well, late 1950s) times.  Some, tho not much, of his info is a
little out of date, archeologically speaking.
Personally I part company with his view that Christian/W.Eur civilization is
the be-all and end-all-- but even here, he's wise enough to recognize that
this too may pass away, as his general theory would suggest.
Perhaps the North-South dichotomy is the "Challenge" facing this
civilization, and our "Response" will determine the outcome.....?  In the
long run.........   Roger.