The Influence of English
One of the most important aspect in differences between Indonesian and Malay is the degree of influence from English. Apart from being heavily influenced by the Dutch language, Indonesian language also adopted a significant number of English loan words in its vocabulary. There have been many changes in Indonesian language as a result of its historical development. Words have been freely borrowed from English and only partly assimilated, in many cases, to the Indonesian patterns of structure. By the late 1970s, English words pouring into the language, leading one commentator, writing in 1977, to refer to the "trend towards Indo-Saxonisation". A great many borrowings from English sometimes fulfill no communicative need, expressing concepts adequately covered by existing words. Among the examples are: akurat instead of tepat (accurate), aliansi in the place of sekutu (alliance), eksis rather than ada (exist), kandidat as well as calon (candidate), konklusi instead of kesimpulan (conclusion) kontaminasi in the place of pencemaran (contamination), opini rather than pendapat (opinion) and opsi in the place of pilihan (option). On the other hand, in absorbing the numerous xenisms or loan words from English, Malaysian Malay has shown a remarkable resilience, despite being the former colony of British empire.
Some in Indonesia view this trend of excessive borrowings as "language dynamism", while some Malay linguists called it mass "language pollution", and lack of creativity in creating new terms.
These days a widespread use of English in the Indonesian and Malaysian twittersphere can be observed. Basolectal and mesolectal English usage couched within Malay and other local language are common. Twitter has, as an example, become extremely widely used by all sections of society and the next twenty years should see a lot of language-rub from which we could expect to see more Anglicisims move into acrolectical or printed Indonesian and Malay.
Read more about this topic: Differences Between Malaysian And Indonesian
Famous quotes containing the words influence and/or english:
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)