IIAS Seminar
18 March, 1994
Leiden, The Netherlands

THE DUTCH COLONIAL LANGUAGE POLICY

So far the language policy pursued in the former Dutch colonies has failed to
attract a great deal of attention. This statement is equally valid for the
language policy with regard to the Dutch language itself, as for the policy
implemented towards the various indigenous languages, in both the East and the
West Indies (Surinam and the Dutch Antilles). During the IIAS seminar "The
Dutch Colonial Language Policy", which was held on March 18, 1994,  various
aspects of the subject were broached in eight papers.

By C.R. Groeneboer

After the opening of the seminar by the president of the IIAS, Prof. F.
Hsken, by way of introduction to the theme of the day Prof. J.W. de Vries
touched briefly upon the question of "What is colonial language policy?". This
was followed by papers dealing with the colonial language policy in the
Netherlands East Indies with respect to Malay ( Prof. H.M.J. Maier), Dutch (
Dr K. Groeneboer), Javanese ( Prof. B. Arps), and Sundanese (Dr T. van den
Berge and M. Moriyama M.A.), and then Prof. C. Fasseur examined the question
of the linguistic competence of the civil servants in the Netherlands East
Indies. At the end of the day, in order to provide a comparison for the
situation in the East Indies, two addresses drew attention to the Dutch
colonial language policy in the West Indies: the Surinam language policy was
handled by Drs. Ch.H. Eersel and that of the Antilles by Dr F.C.M. van Putte.
The programme for the day, consisting of eight lively lectures, each lasting
roughly half an hour and each generating some discussion, went like clockwork.
The council chamber of the university turned out to be an eminently suitable
location for the number of participants (about 75 in the morning and 55 in the
afternoon) and the catering was greatly appreciated. The backup provided by
the IIAS secretariat was excellent.
In the future it would be well worth considering organizing a follow-up
study-day, with colonial language policy in an international perspective as
its theme. The aim would be to compare Dutch colonial language policy  with,
for instance,  that of the French in Indo-China and Africa, as well as in
French Guyana and the Caribbean; that of the English in British India, Burma,
and Malaysia, as well as British Guyana and the Caribbean; and with those of
the Portuguese and Spanish in Asia and South America. This sort of perspective
would be extremely valuable in developing a sounder understanding of the Dutch
colonial language policy in both the East and the West Indies.
I now intend to take upon myself the editing of a book De Nederlandse
koloniale taalpolitiek in Oost en West based on the papers given a the
seminar. All eight speakers have agreed to lend their co-operation, and in the
meantime extra contributions have also been promised (conditionally) by Dr U.
Kozk about the language policy towards Batak, Dr R. Tol and Drs. S. Koolhof
about Buginese and Makassarese, by Dr D. Jemdanski about the language policy
of Balai Poestaka, as well as by Drs. S.L. Gobdadhan-Rambocus about Dutch in
Surinam and by Dr W. Rutgers about the more recent (semi-colonial) Antillean
language policy. It is hoped that a Dutch language edition will be published
in 1995, which may be followed by an Indonesian and, possibly, an English
version.