Preserving the Slowly Dying Javanese Language in the Digital Era
B. Interview result
Suryantani, A. Y. D., Preserving the Slowly Dying Javanese Language in the 127 Digital Era
Other than using the language as often as possible and communicating with the younger generation using Javanese, the participants also mentioned about writing in Javanese in Wikipedia, creating interface and application in Javanese, being part of Javanese language learning group, creating Javanese learning group in social media, as well as making film which contains Javanese language use. These ideas are worth noting. People who play roles in preserving the language need to hear these ideas and explore them more before at the end implement those ideas especially those which involve the use of digital media in a bigger scale. The use of digital media in preserving Javanese Language is important as the young generation is more attracted to digital media.
128 The 5th Celt International Conference Proceeding: Contextualizing the Trajectory of Language, Arts and Culture in Contemporary Society, 9-11th September 2017, pp. 120-129
by helping Javanese diaspora to keep using their Javanese and providing learning materials for anyone in the group. Second, it has bigger intention to unite Javanese diaspora with the hope that when Javanese are united, they will be able to help the government of Indonesia to keep the unity of the nation.
Mbak Meniek stated her concern on how people were easily provoked by issues related to religious believes. She said that it is sad to see that happens. She also pointed out how people were so much more tolerant in the past when cultural values were still vibrant. She expressed her concern on how people look more religious these days, but in fact they do not respect people as much as people in the old days.
Mbak Meniek hoped that when Javanese diaspora remember their cultural background, they will feel more connected to their culture and people who have the same cultural background as them. In the end, when they are strongly connected, they can spread the joy of embracing cultural values to other people around them and invite people to embrace their cultural values too. When people respect their local cultures more, they will not easily be influenced by issues which intend to divide people.
3. Challenges
When asked about the challenge in managing the group, Mbak Meniek stated that it is not easy to accommodate everyone. There are times when she had to calm different members down when the discussions went to arguments. She needed to privately message the members and explained the situation to calm them down. She said that sometimes she took provoking posts and comments down when she felt that those posts and comments led to conflict. She argued that even though sometimes she agreed with one side of people in conflict, she still decided to take the posts down. “The main aim of the group is to help people to study the language. I do not want people to get discouraged when the see conflict in the group,” said Mbak Meniek. ot
The other challenge faced by the group is finding someone who can regularly post learning materials. Mbak Meniek have tried several times to assign „teachers‟
who is responsible for posting daily learning materials, but most of them ended up posting two or three times and then stopped. Most of them blamed their work as the main reason why they stopped posting to the group. Mbak Meniek hoped that there is someone who committed to post learning materials more regularly. She also hoped that the group can have more youthful postings which can attract younger generation to learn Javanese.
Attracting younger people to learn is not an easy task to do as the younger generation is more attracted to foreign languages and cultures. This is worsened by the fact that Javanese is not spoken as much as before at home. Exposure to Javanese is way less than before. Mbak Meniek gave examples how her nephews and nieces were talking in Bahasa Indonesia at home. She hoped that the group could have more young people as its members and help them in learning the Javanese language and culture.
Suryantani, A. Y. D., Preserving the Slowly Dying Javanese Language in the 129 Digital Era
CONCLUSION
This study is far from completed. This is only a preliminary study to see how Javanese language is used and preserved in the digital era. The gathered data showed that people are still eager to use Javanese language and preserve the language. These people even mention ideas in preserving the language through digital media and they have applied the ideas they have. They are committed to work without payment in order to help people learn Javanese language and use it more proficiently. Further exploration is still needed to see how the Javanese language status progresses as time goes by and whether or not the efforts to preserve it show positive result.
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