Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Modern Literature in Javanese: Redefining Indonesia’s Mono-Lingual Literary Nationalism?
Guest Address at the International Seminar on Language Education and Culture (ISoLEC)
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.211212.023How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Javanese language; Javanese literature; digital technology; modern literature in Javanese; literary nationalism
- Abstract
With at least eighty million speakers, Javanese is a major world language. Its heritage of written literature stretches back more than a thousand years. Since Indonesia’s independence, Javanese has been relegated to the status of a provincial vernacular without official standing or functions. Its modern literature is accorded secondary status by comparison with writing in the national language, Bahasa Indonesia. Like many once-vibrant languages and literatures across the world, Javanese has withered under the shadow of nationalist culture.
But a new age may be dawning for the Javanese language and its literature. Over the last two decades there has been an astonishing take-up of digital technology across Indonesia. Smartphones are ubiquitous, tablet computers and laptops widely used, even by people on relatively low incomes. In compact, heavily populated Java, access to the internet is cheap and fast. This has had a stimulating effect on creative writing in Javanese. For many decades, new writing in Javanese has appeared mostly in small-circulation magazines. Now the three main Javanese-language magazines – Panjebar Semangat, Jaya Baya and Djaka Lodang – offer readers online access. Many new literary sites in Javanese have appeared on the internet. There is now instant access to Javanese-language performance arts – wayang kulit, kethoprak, sandiwara and cinema productions – through technically sophisticated streaming sites.
Digital technology has wrought a dramatic change in the field of Javanese-language book publishing. Here, improved editing and design, nimble publishing and re-printing, plus online distribution have suddenly increased the number of new novels, anthologies of short stories (cerkak) and collections of free-form poetry (geguritan). The future of Javanese literature is still uncertain, but digital technology has profoundly changed the rules of the game.
- Copyright
- © 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - George Quinn PY - 2021 DA - 2021/12/14 TI - Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Modern Literature in Javanese: Redefining Indonesia’s Mono-Lingual Literary Nationalism? BT - Proceedings of the International Seminar on Language, Education, and Culture (ISoLEC 2021) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 124 EP - 127 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211212.023 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.211212.023 ID - Quinn2021 ER -