SUNDANESE LANGUAGE SURVIVAL AMONG INDONESIAN DIASPORA FAMILIES IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
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, despitebelieving in the importance of Sundanese language in their
diasporic life, speaking Sundaneseis 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.
Author: Akhmad Bukhori Muslim
Journal Code: jppendidikangg150189
