GAYO LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG THE GAYO TEENAGERS IN MEDAN.

(1)

,

•

nv.ii.m

PERPUSTAKAAN

~.

U :\J IMEO

· ---~~

~-'lJ ,_, ~ ----,:~ : !; f '' ._li fil h\ . -_~t ::: ::t.f t~ e ~ :~:~> : ~J- ~.re">.:· ~g:n ts .:··Lr t h t~ l h~~~ .1 ::of: , -..

_;:~->· - ~":~~-S) . ~~· ~ - ~~- ~ :. u. ~_ l1 .J,~~ .t!

~., "

.

'

' }' .

~ - -~: _!:.l"!:; .. J~ <~l~J~~J:.~1~

~:&~-:.=!_;_:~::~-:\: :· ~\ -~ .i ~t~.r·:~ht~r : n:.~" - ·: t ~ q<-<~.-· -~, J~ r

TGL. TERiMA

ASAL

'

(2)

I

!

A THESIS

GAYO LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE AMONG

THE GAYO TEENAGERS IN MEDAN

BY:

FARINA TANGKENATE Registration Number: 082188310007 This Thesis was examined on January 131

h 2011

By the Board of Examiners Approved by

(3)

j

APPROVAL

This Thesis was examined on 13"' January 2011 by Board Examiners

Board of Examiners

Prof. Tina Ma riany Arifin M.A, Ph.D NIP: 19440302 196902 2 001

Prof.Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd NIP: 19590713 198601 I 001

Prof. Amrin Saragih,M.A, Ph.D NIP: 19550113 198203 1 002

Prof.Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd NIP: 19610425 198601 2 001

Dr. Didik Santoso,M.Pd

(4)

-Dedicated to:

My

beloved Grandfather

r

~

Drs. HYusufRawakil

~A

For his love, motivation and inspiration

T

~

on the importance of maintaining Gayo language... .. \

Cl

~

I

(5)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Alhamdulillahirobbilalamin!

First of all, thanks to ALLAH SWT for the mercy and guidance in giving the writer full strength to complete this thesis. Even facing with some difficulties in completing this thesis, the writer still managed to complete it.

This thesis, in its present could not have been written without the assistance and inputs from those who deserve a special appreciation. The writer would like to express her appreciation. First, to Prof. Tina Mariany Arifin, M.A,Ph,D. for her endless encouragement in completing the thesis, valuable inputs in the process of writing, and sharp comments in the contents and style of writing that have helped to shape this thesis. The writer realizes that there are still many more to be mastered. Second, to Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd. for all support and guidance in helping the writer to finish this thesis that really testing her abilities mentally and physically. The writer would also like to say many thanks to the Head of English Department, Prof. Dr.Busmin Guming, M.Pd. and also Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd. as the Secretary of the English Applied Linguistic for making all the process in completing her Master Degree easy administratively.

(6)

writer would also like to give a huge thank to the two of her little sister Safirani

Simehate, S.E and Humaira Jerohate for their endless support.

The writer also would like to extend her sincere thanks to Abanganda Yusradi

al-Gayoni and all the Gayo teenagers for being the informants and spend their time

for some interviews about Gayo.

Thanks to all of friends, Amin Dalimunthe,S.S, M.Hum, Susiana Kaban,S.S,

M.Hum, Emi Zahli Arwulandika,S.S, Siti Suhaila Siregar, S.Pd,M.Hum and Agus

Santoso who never give up in giving their support and the lovely time shared.

She also would like to extend her indebtedness for the valuable inputs for

Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A, Ph.D, Dr. Didik Santoso and Prof. Dr.Lince

Sihombing,M.Pd as the reviewers and examiners.

Finally, the writer must admit that the content of this thesis is still far from

being perfect, but she warmly welcomes any constructive ideas and critics that will

improve the quality of the thesis. She also hopes this thesis would be useful for those

who read it, especially majoring in English.

Me dan, February 2011

The Writer,

(7)

ABSTRACT

Tangkenate, Farina. Registration Number 082188310007. Gayo Language Maintenance Among Gayo Teenagers in Medan.

A Thesis. English Applied Linguistic Study Program,

Postgraduate School, State University of Medan. 2011

(8)

ABSTRAK

Tangkenate, Farina. Nomor Pendaftaran 08218831007. Pemertahanan Bahasa Gayo Pada Remaja Gayo di Medan. Tesis. Jurusan Linguiustik Terapan Bahasa lnggris, Program Pasca Sarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan 2011.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi pemertahanan bahasa Gayo pada remaja Gayo yang ada di Medan. Tujuan nya adalah untuk menemukan faktor apa yang mempengaruhi pemertahanan bahasa Gayo di Medan sebagai kota multi-budaya, bagaimana para remaja Gayo mempertahankan bahasa Gayo di Medan, dan mangapa para remaja Gayo masih tetap mempertahankan bahasa Gayo mereka. Populasi penelitian ini adalah masyarakat Gayo yang ada di Medan dan sebagai sampel nya hanya 32 remaja Gayo. Alat yang digunakan adalah kuesioner dan wawancara. Ada lima faktor yang dilihat yaitu Perkawinanan satu suku, Orang tua, Kunjungan ke kampung halaman, Lingkungan dan Kebanggan bersuku. Setelah membagikan kuesioner dan melakukan beberapa wawancara dengan para subjek penelitian, kelima faktor tersebut juga berlaku. Dan dari hasil pengolahan data terlihat bahwa kelima faktor harus lah saling berhubungan agar pemertahanan bahasa dapat tercipta. Usaha yang mereka lakukan agar tetap bisa berbahasa Gayo (mempraktekkan bahasa Gayo) adalah dengan aktif dalam organisasi Gayo dan tinggal dengan mahasiswa yang juga berasal dari tanah Gayo. Mengapa remaja Gayo masih mempertahankan bahasa Gayo adalah bahwa mereka mengganggap bahasa

Gayo unik dan paham akan keadaan bahasa Gayo sekarang ini yang terancam punah

(9)

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

2.1 Gayo Language ... ... . ··· ... ... ... 28

(14)

LIST OF PICTURES

Pictures

2.1 The Government Structure of Gayo ... .

2.3 Traditional house ... . 2.4 Traditional clothes ... .

3.1 Model of Data Analysis ... .. .

>

-z

?

93

Page

23

24

25

26

(15)

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appenda Page

5. Real questionnaires results... 67 6. The Real Questionnaire Results per Factor ... 73

(32 Subjects)

7. Questionnaire Results per Factor ... 75 (26 Subjects)

8. Interview Questions... 76 9. Interview transcriptions... 77

(16)

1.1 Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

Language is obviously a vital tool for communication. It is not only as a means of communicating thoughts and ideas, but it is also used for creating

friendshi~s, cultural ties, economic relationships, etc. Without a language the

society can not be formed and there will be no community. It is agreed that language can not be separated from the culture as language is the product of the culture. The connection between culture and language has been noted clearly in past time and probably long before. Language is the most "visible" symbol of an ethnic group.

(17)

Aceh itself consists of many regions, namely north Aceh, south Aceh, West Aceh, East Aceh, West coast Aceh and Central Aceh. In Central Aceh, the people there called as Gayonese. They do not want to be called Acehnese because they assume that they are actually not Acehnese, they are different. Gayo is situated in a highland of Aceh, known as Central Aceh and the capital of Central Aceh is Takengon but at present Gayonese is not only in Takengon but spread to some other places, such as Bener Meriah, Blangkejeren, Kutacane, etc.

It is a fact that at present, Gayo language is endangered never realized by the Gayonese themselves. Many of Gayo the people immigrate from the Gayo land mostly for educational purpose as it is realized that education in Gayo land is less well than other big city such as Medan. And of course the age range who immigrate are mostly the teenagers as they need to increase their knowledge in order to be able to compete in this globalization era.

(18)

that is they way they think that could make they different from the adults. This really affects the language maintenance as known that when this new language used in their daily life it means they will forget about their mother tongue (first language). It is also clearly seen as the phenomenon nowadays that the teenagers try to adjust themselves to the time changing and globalization which push them to learn foreign language and leave their tribal language. And this is not only happen to the Gayo teenagers but also all the teenagers from all of the ethnic groups.

According to ai-Gayoni (2010), one of the Gayo activists who lives in Medan and has just finished his Master Degree at North Sumatera University (Universitas Sumatera Utara: USU), the number of Gayonese in Medan is 2000-2500, while the total population of Medan (Wikipedia, 2010) is about 2.036.01 8. Thus, it can be seen that the number of Gayonese is very small with only 0, l % ofMedan's total population. It can be said that the Gayonese is a minority ethn ic group in Medan. This minority position gives effect to their way of life or life style and language is one of the examples. As a minority group they use the majority language to communicate with the majoriy or adapt with the multicultural situation and use Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) as the vernacular then causes a language shift.

(19)

22.8%, bahasa Indonesia 12.27% while mix language (Gayo-Indonesia) about 64.9%. While in an informal meeting they utter Gayo language about 38.58%, bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) about 17.53% and mix language (Gayo-Indonesia) about 43 .84%. But if there are any other language speakers around them, they utter Gayo language about 5.25%, bahasa Indonesia 73.67% and mix-language (Gayo-Indonesia) about 21.26%. (al-Gayoni, 2006: 27-40). Based on this research it can be seen that they still utter Gayo language, and we can not make a direct judgment that teenagers nowadays do not have any attention to their ethnic group. There must be some factors that affect this phenomenon.

Actually, there are so many things that can be done in order to maintain a

language for example intramarriage (same culture marriage), one language users live in the same community, including the language in the school curriculum, perform cultural events, etc. An authentic example is the existence of Batak language. It can be seen that they tend to have intramarriage but have to be from different family clan. As they have the same language in one family they speak the Batak language at home and then their children will be familiar with the language and able to speak the Batak language. But this is not the only way to maintain such language. The other way, can be by including the language in the school curriculum. For example Sundanese, in West Java, the government inserts the Sunda language to the curriculum so that the people there still know and use the language. In Gayo itself, there is a regulation about inserting Gayo language to the school curriculum (Qanun). Other parts of Indonesia namely Java, Kalimantan,

(20)

Sulawesi and Irian Jaya there is no regulation as Qanun for Gayo language to be

taught as Gayo is not the local ethnic group. This is the exact situation for the Gayonese in Medan, i.e. the Gayo cannot maintain the language through the curriculum. But still in this era of globalization the time has changed and may be there are some other factors that can cause language maintenance. It is hoped that this thesis will be able to show the factors and how to increase those factors so that the language maintenance can be happen.

1.2 The Focus of the Study

The focus of this research is the factors of Gayo language maintenance in Medan by the teenagers. Based on this focus the problems of the research formulated as below;

l ) What factors affect the Gayo language maintenance in Medan? 2) How do the Gayo teenagers maintain the Gayo language in Medan? 3) Why do the Gayo teenagers maintain the Gayo language?

1.3 The Objectives of the Study

Along with the problems of the study there are some overreaching objectives, they are:

(21)

1.4 The Scope of the Study

A study on language maintenance should be very interesting and it is very closely related to language planning program as the program of the Department of Education of every country. In order to avoid its disappearance in public especially the community who speaks the language. And Indonesia as the big country with 726 languages (746 according to Balai Bahasa, Medan) and one of them is Gayo language as a language of the people of Gayo, a town in Central Aceh, with its small community and population of 2500 people in Medan, the language should be maintained. Therefore, the scope of this thesis is on Gayo language and the teenagers will be taken as the subjects.

1.5 Tbe Significance of the Study

Language is a symbol of identity. Indonesian is one of the symbols of identity for Indonesian people that they are Indonesian. Indonesia is a huge diverse nation. In Indonesia, there are so many tribal languages. A source from the internet says that there are 726 local languages (746 according to Balai Bahasa, Medan) (ethnic language) in Indonesia. These numbers of local languages create the uniqueness of Indonesian. This uniqueness need to be preserved. One of the endangered tribal languages in Indonesia is Gayo language. This Gayo language is endangered according to some elder man of Gayo. As the problem of lack of printed or written material about Gayo this cause the next generation of Gayo have no idea about their own culture and cause their lack of knowledge of language.

(22)

After conducting this study, it is hoped significantly relevant to the theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, this research finding hoped to be useful for the next researchers who will do an in depth research dealing about language maintenance or any research about Gayo. Practically, since this research focuses on Gayo Language which is directly connected to the Gayo culture and existence, it is also hoped to be useful for all Gayonese to realize that it is important to maintain their language in order to keep the existence of their ethnic

(23)

References

Arnold, M. (1869). CultureandAnarchy. New York: Macmillan. Third edition, (1882), Baker, C (2001) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon:

Multilingual Matters.

Cooper, R. L. (1989). Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cooper, R. Language Spread ( 1982). Studies in Diffusion and Social Change. Center for Applied Linguistics.

Crystal, D. (1997). Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hurlock, E. B. (1993). Psikologi Perkembangan Edisi ke-5, (Jakarta:Erlangga). Fasold, R. (1984). Sociolingustics ofSociety. Basil Blak Well Inc. New Yor

Fishman,

J.

A. (1991). Reversing language Shift: Theory and Practice of Assistance to

Threatened Languages. Clevedon : Multilingual Matters.

Fishman, J. A . (ed.) (2001). Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Reversing Language Shift

Revisited: A 21st Century Perspective. Clevedon : Multilingual Matters.

Gunarsa, S.D. (1988). Psikologi remaja. Jakarta: BPK Gunung Mulia.

Gunarsa, S.D. (1990). Dasar dan teori perkembangan anak. Jakarta: BPK Gunung Mulia. H augen, E ( 1959) Planning for a standard language in modern Norway. Anthropological

Linguistics I

:8-21.

Holmes, J ( 2001) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics; Second edition: Pearson Education Limited

Hoepfl, M. C. (1997). Choosing qualitative research: A primer for technology education researchers. Journal ofTechnology Education, 9(1), 47-63.

Hurlock, E. B. (1990). Developmental psychology: a lifespan approach. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Hurlock, E. B. (1973). Adolescent development. Tokyo: McGraw-Hill Kogakusha.

Ignace, M.B. (1998). A Hanabookfor Aboriginal Language Program Planning in Britis

Columbia. First Nations Education Steering Committee: British Columbia

(24)

Joppe, M. (2000). The Research Process. Retrieved February 25, 1998,

http://www . ryerson.ca/~mjoppe/rp.htm

Kaplan B. R, and Richard B. B. Jr. Language Planning from Practice to Theory.

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters ltd., 1997

Laponce, J. A. (1987) Languages and Their Territories. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Lincoln, Y. & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Lieberson, S. (1981 ). Language Diversity and Language Contact. Stanford University, Stanford,

California

Miles, M. B. & Huberman, M. A. (1 994). Qualitative Data Analysis, Second Edition.

Myers,C. (2006). Multiple Voices. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

Nettle,D. (1999). Linguistic Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. US Amazon.UK Amazon

Papalia, DE., Olds, S. W., & Feldman, Ruth D. (2001). Human development (8th ed). Boston: McGraw-Hill

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Rice, F.P. (1990). The adolescent development, relationship & culture (6th ed.). Boston: Ally &

Bacon

Sapir, E. ( 1921). Language. An Introduction to the Study of Speech. London: Rupert Hart-Davis. Saussure, F. de. (2002) Ecrits de linguistique generale (edition prepared by Simon Bouquet &

Rudolf Engler), Paris: Gallimard.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded TheoryPprocedures

(25)

Websites

http:!! en. w.ikipedia. orglwiki!Language _ylanning#Language _ylanning_goals, Accessed Apr.il 4th 2010

http://en.wilcipedia.org/wiki/ Language, Accessed April41h 2010

http :lien. wikipedia. orglwiki/Gayo _language, Accessed May 25th 2010

http:/ l id. wikipedia. orgl wiki/Remaja

Zulkarnain. March 141h 201 0. Rumah Adat Gayo Yang Terlupakan.

http://blog.harian-aceh.com/ rumah-adat-gayo-yang-terlupakan.jsp. Accessed May 251h 2010 . Fajri Boy. August 24th 2006. Pakaian Adat Gayo.

http://(ajriboy. multiply. com/photos/album/54/Pakaian Adat#photo=8, Accessed May 25th 2010