![]() In 1945 when Indonesia declared its independence, Indonesian was formally declared the national language, although then it was the native language of only about 5 per cent of the population, whereas Javanese and Sundanese were the mother tongues of 42–48 percent and 15 percent respectively. Thus, until the 1930s, they maintained a minimalist regime and allowed Malay to spread quickly throughout the archipelago. Moreover, the Dutch wished to prevent the Indonesians from elevating their perceived social status by taking on elements of Dutch culture. In fact, they consciously prevented the language from being spread by refusing to provide education, especially in Dutch, to the native Indonesians so they would not come to see themselves as equals. In marked contrast to the French, Spanish and Portuguese, who pursued an assimilation colonial policy, or even the British, the Dutch did not attempt to spread their language among the indigenous population. The ease with which Indonesia eliminated the language of its former colonial power can perhaps be explained as much by Dutch policy as by Indonesian nationalism, though. Soenjono Dardjowidjojo even goes so far as to say that 'Indonesian is perhaps the only language that has achieved the status of a national language in its true sense' since it truly dominates in all spheres of Indonesian society. However, the rapid disappearance of Dutch was a very unusual case compared with other colonized countries, where the colonial language generally has continued to function as the language of politics, bureaucracy, education, technology, and other important areas for a significant time after independence. The nationalist movement that ultimately brought Indonesian to its national language status rejected Dutch from the outset. Nevertheless, it did have a significant influence on the development of Malay in the colony: during the era of colonization the language that would be standardized as Indonesian absorbed a large amount of Dutch vocabulary in the form of loanwords. Dutch thus remained the language of a small elite: in 1940, only 2% of the total population could speak Dutch. Even then, Dutch administrators were remarkably reluctant to promote the use of Dutch compared to other colonial regimes. Following the bankruptcy of the VOC, the Batavian Republic took control of the colony in 1799 and it was only then that education in and promotion of Dutch began in the colony. The VOC adopted the Malay language as the administrative language of their trading outpost in the east. However, the language had never been dominant among the population of the Indonesian archipelago as it was limited to mercantile activity. When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) first arrived in the archipelago, the Malay language was a significant trading and political language due to the influence of Malaccan Sultanate and later the Portuguese. ![]()
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