Speech

Goenawan Mohamad

THE Indonesian language was not created and fashioned from a single center. And never from a State power. It grew—we will never know exactly when it began—in the midst of crowded markets, in Islamic boarding schools on the edges of towns, in palace corridors and sultans’ treaties, and in church congregations in mixed cities like 17th century Batavia. It was enriched by daily newspapers not written by literati, by sports news wit