Illiterate Javanese

November 16th, 2006, in News & Issues, by Patung

Those on Java island have the worst rates of illiteracy, even while they dominate the nation.

For some the modern state of Indonesia can be characterised as a kind of Javanese empire or colonialism. It may then come as some surprise to learn that of the thirteen odd million Indonesians who are substantially illiterate ten million of them come from Java, according to the Department of Education. Broken down by provinces:

  • East Java, 4.6 million
  • Central Java, 3.2 million
  • West Java & Banten, 3 milllion

Outside of Java those provinces worst affected by illiteracy are West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua, South Sulawesi and West Kalimantan.

Sudjarwo Singowidjojo, the Director of People’s Education at the Directorate General of External School Education, says the Javanese are hindered by the fact that many of them still have Javanese, a language that uses the Sanskrit alphabet, as their mother tongue. This makes people, especially old folks, disinclined to learn the Latin alphabet, he says.

Javanese language and culture should hurry up and die, he goes on:

Javanese culture is still too strong.

Most of the illiterate are over forty years old and the problem partly stems from the pre-1960’s government of Indonesia not requiring children to go to school. Harsh words follow:

People were too lazy to go to school.

He says that this year and next his department will focus on the Rembang, Kuningan, Majalengka, Sampang, Sumenep, Indramayu and Karawang areas, in its efforts to improve literacy. [1]


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8 Comments on “Illiterate Javanese”

  1. Munafikbangetloepade Says:
    November 16th, 2006 at 4:55 am

    Javanese language and culture should hurry up and die, he goes on:

    WHAT???

    A very lame excuse.

    Tell that to the Japanese (yes, Japanese, those who created the world wonder called Nintendo)…, and see how the would react!

  2. ali Says:
    November 16th, 2006 at 7:18 am

    Javanese and Japanese, minor name difference, HUGE attitude difference.
    So close yet so far away.

  3. Travis Says:
    November 16th, 2006 at 4:12 pm

    Tell them both, and let them trade places!

  4. O. Bule Says:
    November 17th, 2006 at 3:07 am

    Whatever happened to the Sumpah Pemuda:

    Satu Tanah “” Air Indonesia (One nation “” the Indonesian nation)
    Satu Bangsa “” Orang Indonesia (One people “” the Indonesian people)
    Satu Bahasa “” Bahasa Indonesia (One language “” the Indonesian language)

    O. Bule

  5. Tomaculum Says:
    November 17th, 2006 at 3:46 am

    People were too lazy to go to school.

    If you don’t have even enough money to buy food for your children for tomorrow, then you will be too “lazy” to go to school.

    The one, who said this , is either arrogant or blind or ignores the economical situation at that time.

    Even nowaday there are still many “lazy” javanese young people, which don’t have enough money to pay the further education after the middle school.

    Sudjarwo Singowidjojo, the Director of People’s Education at the Directorate General of External School Education, says the Javanese are hindered by the fact that many of them still have Javanese, a language that uses the Sanskrit alphabet, as their mother tongue.

    My mother tongue were javanese and bahasa Indonesia and I have now 3 (three) specialisation in the medicine and have read many books from Al Qur’an over Nietzsche to Marx. So I am surely more illiterate than this Mr. Sudjarwo Singowidjojo.

    What kind of bull sh*t some people exhale!

  6. Fanglong Says:
    November 17th, 2006 at 2:22 pm

    Sudjarwo Singowidjojo, the Director of People’s Education at the Directorate General of External School Education, says the Javanese are hindered by the fact that many of them still have Javanese, a language that uses the Sanskrit alphabet, as their mother tongue. This makes people, especially old folks, disinclined to learn the Latin alphabet, he says.

    Javanese language and culture should hurry up and die, he goes on:

    Javanese culture is still too strong.

    As our friends suggest, Japanese writing is far more complex than the Javanese alphabet (which is not Sanskrit [Sanskrit is a language mainly written in Devanagari], nor derived from it, but from Brahmi like most of Indian writings — Huruf Jawa [honocoroko] derives more precisely, like Mon, Thai, & Lao, from a Southern Indian species of Brahmi-derived writing — more curves than straight angles, etc.) : there’s no hindrance in there. In modern Nintendo Japan, newspapers & schoolbooks are written with two 30-syllable alpabets (katakana & hiragana) + 1850 kanji (there are many more kanji, or “Chinese characters”, but only 1850 are “allowed” in some publications, the rest is written with the two syllabaries). As I said, Javanese is as perfect as a language may be, so is Indonesian, which is Malay w/ some variations in syntax & vocabulary : Latin alphabet is fun, it can be learned within some days by motivated people guided by competent teachers : here is the problem, isn’t it ? Competence & motivation. But apart of certain colonialistic trends, indeed, Javanese culture should never die ! What are you saying, Mr Director of Education ?

  7. DianDoank Says:
    December 8th, 2006 at 7:44 am

    Don’t think that these days people in java still use Sanskrit to write letter to each other :)
    I think everybody understand the importance to speak and write good Bahasa Indonesia. And yes it is essential to have one language which every citizen use to speak with each other since we have more than 250 tribe languages. However it shouldn’t at the cost of local language.

    There should be an education system where local languages not extinct. Look at how UNESCO try to preserve tribal languages. At this point government should be happy that along with bahasa Indonesia, javanese still be used as the medium between the older generation to younger generation. Using local language will provide a smooth knowledge transfer between genre on the culture and social life that might hard to transfer by using Bahasa.

  8. Niamh Piperman Says:
    February 15th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

    Wow, this guy’s seriously out of touch. Since when do Javanese use anything other that a LATIN alphabet to write?

    O.Bule, the Sumpah Pemuda does not mean one language in place of all the rest. It simply means one UNIFYING language. Never was it intended to displace the regional languages.

    To insist that being too much of any culture is to be somehow less Indonesian is absurd and has NOTHING to do with illiteracy.

    Besides that, there is also the National Motto - Unity in Diversity. How can you have diversity if everyone speaks only one language, or no longer claim heritage as Javanese or Batak or whatever. How boring a buffet meal would be if all the ‘different’ dishes were Mashed Potato.

    Cheers,
    NP

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