Overview

Indonesia's policy since independence has been to foster the national language. In some regions, local languages are still political rallying points, but 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, on the island of Sumba, this shift has displaced a once vibrant tradition of ritual poetic speech, 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. This first study to analyse language change in relation to political marginality argues that political coercion or cognitive process of 'style reduction' may partially explain what has happened, but equally important in language shift is the role of linguistic ideologies.

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'Neatly orchestrating his analysis with admirable concision and lucidity, Kuipers has composed an insightful study that is thoroughly accessible to any reader interested in the shifting nexus between language and power.' Benjamin G. Zimmer, The Times Literary Supplement 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

'Neatly orchestrating his analysis with admirable concision and lucidity, Kuipers has composed an insightful study that is thoroughly accessible to any reader interested in the shifting nexus between language and power.' Benjamin G. Zimmer, The Times Literary Supplement

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