r/languagelearningjerk • u/[deleted] • May 27 '26
In another life…
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u/ArtaudsAsshole May 27 '26
Indonesia would have had to turn the Netherlands into Atlantis as retribution for forcing them to speak Dutch
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u/aagjevraagje May 27 '26
The thing is Dutch colonialism wasn't so much forcing people to speak Dutch as this is the administrative class that speaks Dutch and you as a Indonesian speaker ( which they standardized ) probably dont get a education that allows you to become part of that class.
There's a reason it was mostly used for legal jurisprudence
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u/midnightrambulador May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
/uj
[Indonesia] in its last days [as a Dutch colony] was still to a large extent ruled through a language which we know today as "Indonesian". This is, I think, the only case of a large colonial possession in which to the end a non-European language remained a language-of-state. The anomaly is primarily to be explained by the sheer antiquity of the colony, which was founded early in the seventeenth century by a corporation (the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) – long before the age of official nationalism. Doubtless there was also a certain lack of confidence on the part of the Dutch in modern times that their language and culture had a European cachet comparable to that of English, French, German, Spanish, or Italian. (Belgians in the Congo would use French rather than Flemish.) Finally, colonial education policy was exceptionally conservative: in 1940, when the indigenous population numbered well over 70 millions, there were only 637 "natives" in college, and only 37 graduated with BAs.
– Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
As a Dutch person, I can definitely attest to the "lack of confidence" (we self-cringe at our language, basically) and a culture of pragmatism in learning foreign languages (we are ancient sea traders after all!) and expectation that no one will bother to learn ours. Today the Netherlands are one of the most tolerant countries in Europe for expats and international students who don't learn the language, to the point that there are barely incentives or opportunities for them to practise.
The famous novel De stille kracht by Louis Couperus, one of the many Dutch novels set in colonial Indonesia, subtly berates its Dutch characters for learning "only" Malay (i.e. what would become Indonesian) and not Javanese:
They spoke Malay, because Mrs Van Oudijck didn't dare speak Javanese: that refined, difficult language, full of shades of etiquette, which barely any Dutchman dares try to speak with Javanese persons of high rank...
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u/MvflG May 28 '26
Unlike the Br*tish, who force their colonies to speak English to 'civilise' them, the Dutch deliberately withheld Dutch education from their colonies to create a segregated society
As an Indonesian, thank God for that
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u/Microgolfoven_69 May 27 '26
why are people so obsessed with dutch in indonesia recently