M. Isnaini, S.Pd., M.Pd feel proud regarding the selection of Indonesian as UNESCO's General Language (Photo: Special) |
Last November, Bahasa Indonesia was successfully legalized as an official language at The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNECO). The legalization of Bahasa Indonesia made people excited and proud. This is due to the fact that Bahasa Indonesia is the 10th official language that has been legalized after Arabic, Italian, and Portuguese.
Regarding this achievement, M. Isnaini, S.Pd., M.Pd as a lecturer in Bahasa Indonesia at the University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) admitted that he is also proud. It was not separated from the government's efforts to nominate Bahasa Indonesia as the official language of the UNESCO general assembly. " It is very appropriate for Bahasa Indonesia to be the official language of the UNESCO general assembly. The speakers of this language have even reached more than 200 million people and have more than 100,000 vocabularies," he said.
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Krisna explained that Bahasa Indonesia has been taught in more than 48 countries around the world. The number of speakers has reached 275 million consisting of local and foreign speakers. It is also in accordance with the message written in Law No. 44/2009, which explains that the government is improving the function of Bahasa Indonesia gradually by making it an international language in a sustainable and systematic way.
There are various impacts on the establishment of Bahasa Indonesia as an official language of UNESCO. For example, on the economic and cultural aspects of society. In the economic aspect, this establishment can increase the cooperation among traders, where expatriates working in Indonesia are required to master the Bahasa Indonesia. While in the cultural aspect, it is a good way to introduce Indonesian culture, both at domestic and international level.
"To realize it, the government and the community need to strengthen the attentiveness of the Bahasa Indonesia in order to get more recognized by the world. One of the programs promoted by the government is the Bahasa Indonesia untuk Penutur Asing (BIPA) (trans: Bahasa Indonesia for Foreign Speakers) program which is available at various universities. One of them is BIPA UMM which facilitates foreign students from various countries to learn a lot about Indonesia," he added.
According to him, this establishment must be followed by public efforts to use Bahasa Indonesia properly instead of abandoning it. He advised the youth to avoid ruining the image of Indonesia's native language with a slang that tends to undermine the structure of Bahasa Indonesia.
"This does not mean that the use of slang is not allowed for communication. However, it would be better to put maximum effort into using Bahasa Indonesia as a common and good communication language to maintain the authenticity of the language," he said. (*tri/wil/put)