ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on linguistic ecology and language policy. Indonesian is the most important language in the growing population of Indonesia. The massive spread of the language has been accused of being detrimental to the maintenance of indigenous languages to the extent that Muhlhausler calls it a “killer language”. Indigenous languages constitute the largest element within Indonesia’s linguistic ecology. The indigenous peoples’ linguistic creativity was also instrumental in the incorporation of words and structure from indigenous languages into the lingua franca Malay. Little is known about the sociolinguistics of heritage languages in Indonesia, although scholarship has unravelled the sociolinguistics of Chinese language varieties. The concept aims to explain the complex, dynamic and polycentric nature of a superdiverse linguistic ecology. Regional lingua francas could compete for space in Indonesia’s linguistic ecology against major indigenous languages. The linguistic competition has engendered a new form of semiotic practice embedding the linguistic features of Javanese and Banjar.
