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Article published In: Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 10:2 (2024) ► pp.113–139

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Variation and change in progress

Evidence from Word-final [‑a] and [‑e] in Jakarta Indonesian

ORCiD logo with link | Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia
 | University of Rochester
Published online: 25 March 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.23006.kur
Abstract
This study reports on variation in final [‑a] ~ [‑e] in Jakarta Indonesian (JI), a new urban variety of Indonesian that emerged from contact between Standard Indonesian (SI) and Betawi, a variety of Malay spoken in the capital of Indonesia. The study incorporates both apparent- and real-time approaches to examining change in this variable, using two large-scale naturalistic speech corpora from three generations of speakers. In the examination of this variable over time, we find that the standard SI form is now predominant in colloquial JI, a change that was led by women and speakers with higher educational backgrounds. The study provides insight into the development of a new language variety within a multilingual environment.
Abstract (Indonesian)
Penelitian ini melaporkan variasi bunyi akhir [‑a] ~ [‑e] dalam Jakarta Indonesian (JI), sebuah ragam urban baru bahasa Indonesia yang muncul dari percampuran antara bahasa Indonesia dan Betawi dan dituturkan di ibu kota Indonesia. Investigasi ini menggabungkan pendekatan apparent-time (waktu tampak) dan real-time (waktu nyata) untuk mengkaji perubahan variabel dari waktu ke waktu dengan menggunakan dua korpora ujaran naturalistik berskala besar dari tiga generasi penutur. Ketika mengamati perubahan variabel dari waktu ke waktu, kami menemukan adanya kecenderungan penggunaan bentuk standar yang lebih sering ditemukan di antara penutur perempuan dan penutur dengan latar belakang pendidikan yang lebih tinggi. Kajian ini memberi sumbangsih pengetahuan tentang bagaimana sebuah ragam bahasa baru dapat muncul secara bertahap dalam lingkungan multibahasa.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1A brief history of Jakarta and background on Indonesian
      • 1.1.1Pre-colonial
      • 1.1.2The colonial period and the development of Betawi
      • 1.1.3Post-colonial Jakarta and the development of Jakarta Indonesian
    • 1.2Standard Indonesian
    • 1.3Word final [‑a] and [‑e] in Betawi and Jakarta Indonesian
    • 1.4Objective of the study
  • 2.Data and methods
    • 2.1The Wallace corpus
    • 2.2The Jakarta field station corpus
    • 2.3Data
  • 3.Findings and discussion
    • 3.1Adult male speakers in the 2000s corpus: Frequency and linguistic conditioning
    • 3.2Findings from all groups of speakers and social categories
    • 3.3The role of gender and education
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
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