Language, Identity, and Marginality in Indonesia: The Changing Nature of Ritual Speech on the Island of Sumba

Review
"In a volume that brings together years of fieldwork and archival research, Kuipers looks at culture and politics in Weyewa society on the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia." Choice

"This important book deserves attention from linguists and anthropologists alike, and the author is to be congratulated upon having made an original contribution to the ethnography of speaking and a noteworthy addition to our ethnography of Sumbanese populations." Asian Thought and Society

"...welcome contribution to Indonesian political studies, far beyond its valuable sociolinguistic insights." Susan Rodgers, The Journal of Asian Studies

"Joel Kuipers has given us an extremely study of the important Southest Asian connections between spatial concepts, the organization power and polity, and ritual speech under changing conditions." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology

"Joel Kuipers has given us an extremely study of the important Southest Asian connections between spatial concepts, the organization power and polity, and ritual speech under changing conditions." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology


Book Description
The rapid spread of Indonesian as the national language of Indonesia has diminished the significance of local languages. On the island of Sumba, this shift has displaced a once vibrant tradition of ritual poetic speech, but has also given rise to new and hybrid forms of poetic expression. This book analyzes language change in relation to political marginality, revealing that political coercion or cognitive process of "style reduction" may offer a partial explanation, but equally important is the role of linguistic ideologies.


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Indonesia's policy since independence has been to foster the national language. In some regions, local languages are still political rallying points, but in general their significance has diminished, and the rapid spread of Indonesian as the national language of political and religious authority has been described as the "miracle of the developing world." Among the Weyewa, an ethnic group living on the island of Sumba, this shift has displaced a once-vibrant tradition of ritual poetic speech used in prayers, songs, and myths, which until recently was an important source of authority, tradition, and identity. But it has also given rise to new and hybrid forms of poetic expression. In this first study to analyze language change in relation to political marginality, Joel Kuipers argues that political coercion or the cognitive process of "style reduction" may offer a partial explanation of what has happened, but equally important in language shift is the role of linguistic ideologies.


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