COMPANY’S PARTICIPATION IN THE LOCAL LANGUAGE RETENTION

Abstract

Professional life or more popularly called as business activity cannot be implemented in the absence of language. The existence of language is very important in business activity. Historically business activity before independence, especially during Dutch colonial era, takes advantage of the local language which has potency to become lingua franca. The term lingua franca is exactly used to refer to Malay language (Riau)because it is spread widely in Nusantara territory. During its development, Dutch government is also opened a library which had known as Balai Pustaka where it is allowed to use Malay language as literature language. Because of the popularity of Malay language throughout the Nusantara territory, then Malay language had the attention in case of political and economic sector. Polit ically, Malay language is placed at higher position on the events of the Youth Pledge October 28, 1928 where it contains a confession to uphold the unity of Indonesian language. Economically, Malay language is used by business people in a variety of transactions. Moreover, the use of Malay language is not only limited to the Malay community, but also to other communities including Arabian and Chinese people. This paper seeks to describe the use of the Arabic letters, which is also known as Jawi letters in business activity. The use of the Arabic letters can be said as a realization of the company’s participation in efforts of the local language and culture retention.