Abstract:
The essay "The Languages of Indonesian Politics" (1966) was one of the first published works in Benedict Anderson's long and distinguished career. In that seminal work, he introduced the concept of "revolutionary Malay" which he asserted was the basis for the construction of Bahasa Indonesia as a national language. According to him, the prerequisite for the development of "revolutionary Malay" was the appropriation of Dutch as the "inner language" of the bilingual nationalist intelligentsia. From its explosive rise, Anderson then traces the fate and vicissitudes of "revolutionary Malay" through the immediate post-revolutionary era, the downfall of Soeharto and the advent of Soeharto's Orde Baru. This paper proposes that the concept of "revolutionary Malay" could be employed as a comparative tool in understanding the earlier Philippine experience of language and revolution at the turn of the twentieth century. This study will therefore delve into the three vocabularies (i.e., nationalist, bureaucratic and radical) in Tagalog which Anderson saw as constituting a "revolutionary" vernacular. The different fates and trajectories of revolutionary Tagalog and Malay will be reflected upon.
Short bio:
Ramon Guillermo is Professor of Philippine Studies at the Dept. of Filipino and Philippine Literature, University of the Philippines - Diliman. He is the author of several works on indigenization theory, translation studies and digital philology. He worked with the late Benedict Anderson and Carlos Sardiña Galache on the translation of Isabelo de los Reyes's "Ang Diablo sa Filipinas ayon sa nasasabi sa mga casulatan luma sa Kastila" (The Devil in the Philippines according to ancient Spanish documents) (Anvil Press 2014).
Please click here for the Youtube video of Prof. Guillermo's seminar.
