25 December 2013

History Of Name "Indonesia"

The Arabs call our homeland "Jaza'ir al-Jawi" (Islands of Java). Incense is the Latin name for "benzoe", derived from the Arabic "luban ox" (frankincense of Java), because the Arab traders gain of frankincense trees "Styrax sumatrana" that used to only grow in Sumatra. To this day we are still pilgrims frequently called "Java" by the Arabs.


Even though Indonesia outside Java. "Samathrah, Sholibis, Sundah, kulluh Jawi (Sumatra, Sulawesi, Sunda, all Java)" said a trader in Zinc Market, Mecca.

Then came the time of the arrival of Europeans to Asia. The Europeans who first came it was assumed that Asia consists of Arabic, Persian, Indian, and Chinese. For them, the area stretching between Persia and China all are "Indies". South Asian peninsula they call "Indian face" and mainland Southeast Asia was named "Rear Indies".

While our homeland gained the name "Indian Archipelago" ("Indische Archipel, Indian Archipelago, l'Archipel Indien") or "East Indies" ("Oost Indie, East Indies, Indes Orientales"). Another name used is "Malay Archipelago" ("Maleische Archipel, Malay Archipelago, l'Archipel Malais").

When our country colonized by the Dutch, the official name used is "Nederlandsch-Indie" (Dutch East Indies), while the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945 used the term "Indo-To" (the East Indies). Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-1887), known by the pseudonym Multatuli, never proposed a specific name for the islands mention our homeland, namely "Insulinde", which also means "Indian Archipelago" (Latin "insula" means island). But apparently the name "Insulinde" is less popular. For people of Bandung, "Insulinde" might just be known as the name of the bookstore that once existed on the Road Otista.

In 1920, Ernest Francois Eugene Douwes Dekker (1879-1950), which we know as Dr.. Setiabudi (he is the grandson of the sister Multatuli), popularize a name for our country that do not contain the word "Indian". The name was nothing but the archipelago, a term that has been sinking for centuries. Dr. Setiabudi take the name of Pararaton, the Majapahit era codex found in Bali at the end of the 19th century and translated by JLA Brandes and published by Johannes Krom Nicholaas in 1920.

However, it should be noted that the proposed definition of archipelago Dr. Setiabudi much different from the definition, the archipelago Majapahit era. At the time of Majapahit, used to refer to the archipelago islands outside of Java (in Sanskrit means the outside, opposite) as opposed to "Yavadvipa" (Java). We would never hear the Palapa Oath of Gajah Mada, "Lamun huwus kalah nusantara, isun amukti palapa (If it had been lost across the islands, then I am enjoying the break)".

By Dr. Setiabudi archipelago word that connotes ignorance Majapahit era was given a nationalistic sense. By taking the original Malay words, the archipelago now has a new meaning of "homeland between two continents and two oceans", so Java was included in the definition of modern archipelago. The term archipelago of Dr. Setiabudi is quickly becoming popular as an alternative use of the name of the Dutch East Indies.

To this day we still use the term archipelago to mention the area of ​​our homeland from Sabang to Merauke. But the official name of the nation and our country is Indonesia. Now we will explore where the hell the name is difficult for the Malay tongue appears.



The name Indonesia

In 1847 in Singapore published an annual scientific magazines, "Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia" (JIAEA), which is managed by James Richardson Logan (1819-1869), a Scot who took a law degree from the University of Edinburgh. Then in 1849 an English ethnologist nation, George Samuel Windsor Earl (1813-1865), incorporating itself as a magazine editor JIAEA.

In JIAEA 1850 Volume IV, pages 66-74, Earl wrote the article "On The Leading Characteristics of the Papuan, Australian and Malay-Polynesian Nations". In the article confirms that Earl has come for the people of the Malay Archipelago Indian Archipelago or to have a unique name ("a distinctive name"), because it is not appropriate Indian name and is often confused with another mention of India. Earl propose two options name: "Indunesia" or "Malayunesia" ("nesos" in Greek means island). On page 71 an article was written: "... the inhabitants of the Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago would become respectively Indunesians or Malayunesians."

Earl has said choosing the name "Malayunesia" (Malay Archipelago) rather than "Indunesia" (Indian Archipelago), because "Malayunesia" very appropriate for the Malay race, while "Indunesia" can also be used to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Maldives (Maldives). Anyway, Earl said, is not the Malay language spoken throughout the islands? In writing that Earl did use the term "Malayunesia" and does not use the term "Indunesia".

In Volume IV JIAEA it also, pages 252-347, James Richardson Logan wrote the article "The Ethnology of the Indian Archipelago." In the beginning of her writing, Logan also expressed the need for a distinctive name for the islands of our country, because the term "Indian Archipelago" is too long and confusing. Logan picked up the name "Indunesia" Earl discarded, and the replacement of the letter U with letter o that his words better. Thus was born the term Indonesia.

For the first time Indonesian word appearing in the world with 254 pages printed on the paper Logan: "Mr. Earl Suggests Indunesian the Ethnographical term, but rejects it in favor of Malayunesian. I prefer the purely geographical term Indonesia, the which is merely a shorter Synonym for the Indian Islands or the Indian Archipelago. "When proposed the name" Indonesia "Logan does not seem to realize that in the future it will be the name of the name of the nation and the state population ranking fourth-largest planet!

Since then Logan has consistently used the name "Indonesia" in his scientific writings, and the use of this term is slowly spreading among scientists fields of ethnology and geography. In 1884 a professor of ethnology at the University of Berlin named Adolf Bastian (1826-1905) published a book "Rodel oder die Inseln des Malayischen Archipel" five volumes, containing the results of his research when it wandered into our country in 1864 until 1880. Bastian is this book that popularized the term "Indonesia" in the Dutch scholar, so it had raised the presumption that the term "Indonesia" Bastian's creation. Opinion is not true that, among others, are listed in the "Encyclopedie van Nederlandsch-Indie" 1918. Though Bastian took the term "Indonesia" was from the writings of Logan.

No comments:

Post a Comment