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Tom G. Hoogervorst, Language Ungoverned: Indonesia’s Chinese Print Entrepreneurs, 1911-1949, Ithaca [New York], Cornell University Press, 1921, 241 p., Appendix, References, Index, Map, Figures, Tables. ISBN: 9781501758225 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781501758232 (paperback), ISBN: 9781501758249 (epub) / ISBN: 9781501758256 (pdf)

Claudine Salmon
p. 157-157
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Tom G. Hoogervorst, Language Ungoverned: Indonesia’s Chinese Print Entrepreneurs, 1911-1949, Ithaca [New York], Cornell University Press, 1921, 241 p., Appendix, References, Index, Map, Figures, Tables. ISBN: 9781501758225 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781501758232 (paperback), ISBN: 9781501758249 (epub) / ISBN: 9781501758256 (pdf)

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1This is a study of the Sino-Malay press culture in the Dutch East Indies during the late colonial era, as developed by Chinese print entrepreneurs publishing extensively in popular Malay or Sino-Malay (also called “ungoverned Malay” by the author, p. 153) under the noses of the authorities. In so doing, this study reaffirms the importance of this voluminous cultural print production as a legitimate heritage of Indonesia. In terms of methodology, it emphasizes the close relationship between printing, vernacular language, popular culture, and colonial modernity (p. 2). One can guess here the influence of Benedict Anderson.

2After an introduction briefly dealing with the Sino-Malay corpus under investigation, (including periodicals such as Sin Po and Hoakiao, Sino-Malay novels and short stories…) the book is divided into five thematic chapters which do not always follow chronological order, sometimes also extending beyond the period under consideration.

3Chapter 1. “Connected Languages Histories” (pp. 28-50), reflects on the manner Malay and other Insulindian languages were acquired and used by Chinese migrants and their offspring, who created a real plurilingualism. It also alludes to the issue of the rediscovery of Chinese language (Mandarin and regional languages) by Peranakan children, the foundation of Chinese schools in the region in order to revive and sustain a relative Chinese identity.

4Chapter 2. “On Good, Bad, and Ugly Malay” (pp. 51-76) deals with the various verdicts on Malay emanating from European scholars, and the steps taken by colonial administrators to establish a hierarchy between the different Malay languages in the Dutch East Indies, by publishing grammars and dictionaries, and developing a language policy. This policy left Malay speakers in Java as well as Chinese print entrepreneurs indifferent. Since the end of the 19th century, Peranakan Chinese had published in Chinese and in Malay their own linguistic tools. Some of which are briefly presented here, such as Kitab Vortaro (1923) compiled by a certain K.D. Kwik in order to help the readers of Sin Po to understand the meaning of frequently used loanwords in this daily, and that may be the earliest Malay dictionary of foreign words (p. 62).

5Chapter 3. “Printing, Pulp, and Popularity” (pp. 77-100) discusses how Chinese print entrepreneurs developed a popular culture (by means of Chinese and European translated literature, politicized fiction, martial arts stories, pulp novels, and a wide array of nonfiction including educational manuals, books on Chinese and Javanese history …) which debated national and international political issues and created links with the outside world.

6Chapter 4, “Competing Expressions of Modernity” (pp. 101-124), lays the emphasis on the impact of the global rise of capitalism and colonial modernity by focusing on changes in dress and fashion, medical practices and culinary heritage, which each in its own way had an impact on the identity of individuals.

7With Chapter 5, “The Humoristic and the Invective” (pp. 125-159), the author returns to “ungoverned Malay”. It emphasizes the power of words by selecting examples showing how words may create ethnic and cultural differences, especially by means of pronouns, and how words may be used to create irreverent language.

8In the epilogue. “An Important Monument” (pp. 150-159), the author takes up the idea that the uncontrolled Malay in which the Sino-Malay press was written is what enabled Indonesians to create a political counter-force to the dictates of colonialism and to develop a public sphere in which they gradually trained themselves to adapt to modernity, while discovering the pleasure of reading. The author places great emphasis on the fact that the journalists were writing for “all races” (oentoek segala bangsa); however, it goes without saying that in some cases they wrote specifically for the Chinese readers because of their peculiar situation, and problems within the Indonesian society of the time.

9Finally, he insists that this corpus, if systematically digitalized, could give rise to a wide variety of studies including specific grammatical research on this extraordinary vernacular language, as well as on various facets of the history of the period, on which it provides specific documents.

10We are fully convinced of the value of such research, as we ourselves have already worked in this direction, but more particularly with regard to the literary corpus. We would like to add that in the field of language studies, special attention could also be given to the evolution of political terminology. For example, by following some terms (in their foreign or/and Malay form), like nation, nationalism, democracy, revolution, communism, republic..., in newspapers of different political tendencies, in order to see how they evolved over time during the period under consideration.

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Référence papier

Claudine Salmon, « Tom G. Hoogervorst, Language Ungoverned: Indonesia’s Chinese Print Entrepreneurs, 1911-1949, Ithaca [New York], Cornell University Press, 1921, 241 p., Appendix, References, Index, Map, Figures, Tables. ISBN: 9781501758225 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781501758232 (paperback), ISBN: 9781501758249 (epub) / ISBN: 9781501758256 (pdf)  »Archipel, 103 | 2022, 157-157.

Référence électronique

Claudine Salmon, « Tom G. Hoogervorst, Language Ungoverned: Indonesia’s Chinese Print Entrepreneurs, 1911-1949, Ithaca [New York], Cornell University Press, 1921, 241 p., Appendix, References, Index, Map, Figures, Tables. ISBN: 9781501758225 (hardcover), ISBN: 9781501758232 (paperback), ISBN: 9781501758249 (epub) / ISBN: 9781501758256 (pdf)  »Archipel [En ligne], 103 | 2022, mis en ligne le 30 août 2022, consulté le 19 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/archipel/2937 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/archipel.2937

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Claudine Salmon

CNRS, CASE

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