LANGUAGE SHIFT IN ARABIC LANGUAGE IN MEDAN.

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ABSTRACT

Asmitazkirah, Registration Number : 8106111045. Language Shift in Arabic Language in Medan. A thesis. Postgraduate School, English Applied Linguistics Study Program. The state University of Medan. 2013.

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ABSTRAK

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the name of Allah SWT, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

As this thesis is completed, first of All the writer would like to express gratitude to Allah SWT the Lord of the mankind, djinns, and all that exists for the opportunity for her to complete the thesis. Peace upon Muhammad SAW, the last of the prophets and upon his Messengers and his families, his companions and whoever follows him with benevolence until the Day of Resurrection. And also the persons mentioned below who have given her invaluable help, support, suggestions, motivation, encouragements during her study at the English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Postgraduate School State University of Medan.

The writer would like to express her deepest thanks and endless appreciations to her parents, abah (Abdullah Muhammad) and umi (Sofia S. Ali), many thanks for their prayer and support and especially their endless loves. Their praying will bring her into the best of her future, Amin. And also to all my beloved families who always shower me with all their loves and cares; sisters (Zikriah, Fitri, Nissa, Ivo, Dieta) and brothers (Iis, Taufik, Ahmad Alamri, Ahmad Balatif, Ayet and Icai), and also to all my Arabic relatives who supported me in making this thesis. May Allah bless us all.

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gratefulness also goes to them, as the Head and Secretary of the English Applied Linguistics Study Program, for their suggestion and administrative assistance during the process of conducting this study. Her truthfully gratefulness is also given to Prof. Dr. H. Abdul Muin Sibuea, as the Director of Postgraduate School Study Program of State University of Medan.

Furthermore, she also thanks to Prof. Tina Mariany Arifin, M.A, Ph.D., Dr. Eddy Setia, M.Ed, TESP. and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., for their constructive comments and suggestions in enriching the quality of this thesis.

Last but not least, the writer also would like to thank to all of her beloved friends in LTBI intake XIX; Nova, Aisyah, Nurlia, Eka, Elvi, Ira, Zikra, Ulfa, Ufe, Meisa, Yuni, Canra, Mulki, Kak Khairiah, Enni, Bayu, Nasir, Bang Mulia, Syafiq, and Ismed. Thanks for their support, prayer, encouragement, and for the assistance in finishing her study. May Allah SWT consecrate to them. Amin.

Finally this thesis is still far from being perfect in spite of fact that the writer has done her best in completing her work. For this reason, it is suggested for other researchers to make further study related to this topic and subject.

Medan, June 2013 The Writer

Asmitazkirah

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i

REFERENCES ... 80

APPENDICES ... 84

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iv

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 2.1 Domain of Language Use ... 27

Table 4.1 Bilingualism of Arabic Language Shift in Medan ... 45

Table 4.2 Language Mastery and Favorite Language of Second Generation Including Reasons ... 46

Table 4.3 Language Mastery and Favorite Language of Third Generation Including Reasons ... 48

Table 4.4 Migration of Arabic Members in Medan ... 49

Table 4.5 Learning Arabic Language Including Reasons ... 50

Table 4.6 Economic Factor that Influence Arabic Language shift in Medan ... 52

Table 4.7 Social Factor in Arabic Communities in Medan ... 53

Table 4.8 Influence of Political Factor in Arabic Language Shift Shift in Medan ... 54

Table 4.9 Influence of Demographic Factor in Arabic Language Shift in Medan ... 55

Table 4.10 Influence of Media in Arabic Language Shift in Medan ... 57

Table 4.11 Marriage Couple Selection (Expectant) Including Reasons ... 58

Table 4.12 Influence of Value and Attitude in Arabic Language Shift in Medan 60 Table 4.13 Shifting into Bahasa Indonesia Because of Lack of Arabic Language Speaking Competence ... 65

Table 4.14 Language Use of Arabic Language in Medan Based on Domains ... 66

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Page

Appendix 1 Kuesioner 1 ... 84

Appendix 2 Kuesioner 2 ... 92

Appendix 3 Interview ... 93

Appendix 4 List of Respondents ... 94

Appendix 5 Table of Language Mastery and Favorite Language Including Reasons ... 95

Appendix 6 Table of Learning Arabic Language and Place of Learning .... 96

Appendix 7 Table of Economic Factor ... 97

Appendix 8 Table of Social Factor ... 98

Appendix 9 Table of Marriage Couple Selections ... 99

Appendix 10 Table of Language Use Based on Domains ... 100

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v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Language selections:

AL Arabian Language

ALBI Arabic Language and Bahasa Indonesia

BI Bahasa Indonesia

Subjects of the research:

S1 Subject 1 S11 Subject 11

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of the Study

Language is an arbitrary and conventional system of vocal symbols, produced only by human organs of speech, which can be changed into written symbols and used as a means of thinking and feeling, as well as understanding thought and feeling, in the context of communication in a society. Obviously it is very essential for human being and it distinguishes human from other creatures in the world. Language is the human property and originated in man.

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increasing security for the children psychologically, and increase the linguistic sensitivity.

Indonesia is a multilingual country, language shifts potentially happen. Language shift simply means that a community gives up a language completely in favor of another one. For instance as Gunarwan (2004:58) found that Lampung language is shifted because of Bahasa Indonesia‟s pressure. Siregar (1998) also found that language shift

happens in bilingual youth generation society in Medan. This language shift can be seen from the high intensity of the use of Bahasa Indonesia among the dominant community.

Language shift is the process by which a speech community in a contact situation gradually stops using one of its two languages in favor of the other. In this case Arabic language is shifted into Bahasa Indonesia in Arabic community in Medan. If the disfavored language is one that has as its last speakers the members of the community in question, then the language faces endangerment and eventually, language death.

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language shift has started and language loss is imminent, there is little chance that the language will ever again be spoken as the first and primary language of any community.

Language shift and language maintenance is similar to two sides of coin which cannot be divided each other (Fasold, 1984: 213). They form a collective result of choice. He said language shift simply means that a community gives up a language completely in favor of another one. Language shift is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speak another language. It is in fact crucial for the language survival.

Almost all minority groups who live in such multilingual circumstance lack political and economic power; minority groups often become bilingual in the dominant language for both instrumental and psychological reasons. Even the speakers who are in the process of shifting do not show the same degree of shift all at once in all of the purposes or situations for which they use any language.

Further, from the stand of dominant group the presence of minority groups can be an obstacle to communication and, more importantly, to national integration, it may sound cynical but history supports the comment of Laponce (1987: 198) that dominant groups tolerate minorities “only on condition that they accept at least partial linguistic assimilation

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Medan, the capital city of North Sumatera, is one of many cities in Indonesia which has many kinds of different ethnics who live side by side. The city has diverse communities, reflecting its history. The Mandailings also live here in big numbers and working at the most strategic position in government. In addition, there is a large ethnic Javanese community, largely made up of the descendants of people transported from Java in the last century to be employed as contract workers in various plantations in North Sumatera.

Beside indigenous ethnics, there are several other minority ethnics found in Medan, North Sumatera, such as Chinese, Indian, Arabian, etc. This phenomenon happened because long time ago, Indonesian archipelago was a place for trade transactions among merchants from overseas including Europeans, Persians, Chinese, Indians, and Arabians, they were getting involved for trade transaction in Malacca Strait (Machmud, 1991). Malacca strait was connecting two large countries. They are India and China especially in Sriwijaya dynasty (Mulana, 1977). Those merchants finally settled in Indonesia and integrated to be Indonesian people, including Arabian.

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The distance between Arabic land and Indonesia is very far enough. It would take a long time to travel by ship at that time which people used as a tool of transportation. And the weather also took an important role for that time. Those merchants could not travel easily to move back to their countries. Because all that matters, they decided to establish family connections with the indigenous people by marriage. It accelerated the assimilation process and also the process of spreading Islam in Indonesia.

It happened year by year. Most of them married Arabic women who have been born and lived in Indonesia for many years. It makes the assimilation process developed fast. Some women were already bilinguals and some were monolinguals. It makes the children must choose the language while they talk to their mothers and fathers. Some of them still use Arabic language to their children and some of them do not. If the language is lost, it means the culture in which it lived is lost too.

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about the language shift of Arabic language among Arabic community in Manchester, Britain. The study investigates language choice among Arabic-English bilinguals in this community. Such a choice reflects the status of Arabic maintenance/shift as a minority language in Manchester.

The shifting of Arabic language into Bahasa Indonesia is also caused by the differences in social economic and political power. As what Edwards stated in Hellinger & Pauwels (2007: 245), “Language decline is

often a reflection of relative social inequality”. Moreover he states that, “language decline and shift are most often symptoms of contact between

groups of unequal political and economic power”. It means, the tendency

to shift Arabic language by Arabic community may also be caused by the different points of view in treating their own language between speakers in high economic power with the speakers with low economic power. People with high economic power have more responsible of shifting the language where they treat their own language less value than people with low economic power.

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Identity of a certain culture is showed through among others by language use. Besides, cultural phenomena such as wedding ceremony, artefacts, and arts are the signs of the identity of a certain culture and the loss of small indigenous languages entails the loss of the knowledge embedded in them – specifically the detailed knowledge and about local ecosystems encoded in indigenous languages. The loss of a language may do serious harm to the community‟s identity and culture, a view point

strongly articulated by Fishman, who proclaims that: „the destruction of a

language is the destruction of a rooted identity‟ (cited in Ferguson, 1996: 78).

Tjandrasasmita (2000: 23-28) stated that there are still few studies which discuss about Arabic communities in Indonesia instead Arabic people are part of cultural formation and directly involved on social – economic activity in Indonesia (cited in Rabani & Artono, 2005: 114).

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already there in Indonesia for ages. Nowadays Arabic is only learned by the Islamic dormitories or Islamic schools in Medan, but not the Arabians who are supposed to possess Arabic as their mother tongue. That is why this subject is very interesting to be researched. And it is a very important subject to study, so the Arabic people in Medan know how to make a language planning of their own in the future.

Well cultural preservation is attached to linguistic preservation. Lose a language, lose a culture. The writer adds a quotation from a linguist Claude Hagège about what it means to lose a language:

„What we lose is essentially an enormous cultural heritage, the way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, between themselves in the framework of their families, their kin people, it‟s also the way they express their humour, their love, their life. It is a testimony of human communities which is extremely precious, because it expresses what other communities than ours in the modern industrialized world are able to express‟.

For linguists like Claude Hagège, languages are not simply a collection of words. They are living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture. When a language becomes extinct, the culture in which it lived is lost too.

1.2 The Problems of the Study

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1. What factors that make language shift occurs in Arabic community members in Medan?

2. What are the patterns of Arabic language shift in Arabic community members in Medan?

3. Why does language shift occur in Arabic community members in Medan?

1.3 The Objectives of the Study

In line with the problems, the objectives of the study are:

1) to find out what factors make language shift occurs in Arabic community members in Medan.

2) to find out what are the patterns of Arabic language shift in Arabic community members in Medan.

3) to find out why language shift occurs in Arabic community in Medan.

1.4 The scope of the Study

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the whole Arabians in Medan, North Sumatera. The locations were held in the Arabic communities, Annady Al Islamy and Al Ichwany Al Arabia. 1.5 The Significance of the Study

Theoretically, the study is considered to enrich the theories of language planning especially about Arabic language in Arabic community in Medan, the factors influence Arabic language shift in Medan, the pattern of language shift into Bahasa Indonesia and the reason of Arabic language shift into Bahasa Indonesia.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS, SUGGESTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

5.1. Conclusions

The study which is concerned on Arabic language shift was aimed to describe the factors influence Arabic language shift, the pattern of language shift and reasons for shifting into Bahasa Indonesia. The use of Bahasa Indonesia in the family domain is the crucial indication of Arabic language shift, which is followed by the passive ability and none of Arabic language users. Based on the analysis the conclusions are drawn as the following.

1. In general, Arabic language shift in Medan are influenced by bilingualism, migration, social and economic factor, political factor, demographic factor, and value & attitude factor. Meanwhile for the third generation, Bilingual factor is the most influence factor of language shift since they are monolinguals. Only a few of them who still use Arabic language in family domain.

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in Arabic communities. They speak well both; Arabic language and Bahasa Indonesia. And for the third generation, most of them use only Bahasa Indonesia in family domain. They do not use Arabic language in the family domain because they cannot speak the language anymore and also because of their intercultural marriage. They only use Bahasa Indonesia in their daily conversation and often to use it. The subjects begin monolingual in Bahasa Indonesia in five domains.

3. There are two reasons that cause the Arabic language shift into Bahasa Indonesia for the second generation. They are social success and the status of Bahasa Indonesia. For the third generation, there are three reasons that cause the Arabic language shift into Bahasa Indonesia. They are status of Bahasa Indonesia, social success and Bahasa Indonesia is the native language of them. They tend to speak only Bahasa Indonesia since their early age. The persons who can still speak Arabic language are only for those who ever visit Arab land for a certain moment.

5.2 Suggestions

Dealing with the findings of the research, some constructive ideas are suggested as the following.

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2. It is suggested for the third generation to learn Arabic language and try to use it in their daily conversation.

3. It is suggested that the Arabic language researchers should be more concerned with the research of Arabic language since it is still very rarely conducted.

4. It is suggested that linguists, teachers and students especially in Arabic language linguists should write more books or references of Arabic language to maintain the Arabic language.

5.3 Implications

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