Local language vs. national language: The Lampung language maintenance in the Indonesian context

Abstract

The native speakers of the Lampung language are now very much in the minority on their land. The Lampung language that is almost no longer used as a means of communication in the family domain has led to language loss among children and young people in Lampung. Although several studies on the Lampung language maintenance have appeared in the literature, the focus was only restricted to language maintenance in general. As a result, no comprehensive insights and implications appear to exist. Thus, the aim of this paper is to elucidate the issues through a study which focuses on Lampung language maintenance among young people, which was conducted with a quantitative approach. The findings of this study indicate that the Lampung language, like other local languages in Indonesia, has issues that need to be seriously addressed so that it can be still maintained a means of communication. Young families of the native people of Lampung almost no longer use the Lampung language as a means of communication with other family members and relatives. Therefore, to avoid any potential conflict of interest between the Lampung language and the national language, Indonesian, the findings imply that the preservation and maintenance of the Lampung language should be done through a culture-based approach, which emphasizes a sense of pride and love for the Lampung language as cultural wealth and a product of the civilization of native people of Lampung. The limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.