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Is Rongga endangered? Rongga has been increasingly marginalized, particularly during the last thirty years under Soeharto's campaign of development and Indonesianisation. Both community-internal and community-external factors for language maintenance or loyalty disadvantage Rongga: negative attitude towards their language, small size of population, unstable bilingualism, the national language policy and the regional setting where Rongga is of low status and not a lingua franca. These impose heavy pressure on Rongga. While it is not critically endangered in all of its territories, it is indeed threatened in some areas, e.g. along the trans Flores road, where intensified contacts with outsiders have taken place. |
History in brief Flores has had a long history of domination by ‘foreigners', firstly by other ethnic groups in Indonesia , then later on by Europeans. In the 13 th -15 th centuries, the people of western Flores , including the Rongga , were under the influence of the Javanese Majapahit Kingdom . In the 16 th - 19 th centuries, they were under the rival control of the kingdoms of Bima (from the neighbouring island of Sumbawa ) and Goa (from south Celebes ). During the 17 th century the Dutch intervened and helped free the Bimanese from Goanese control. The Rongga people were under constant attack by other eth n ic groups, particularly the Todo people from the west. Though the Rongga fought heroic fights , as recorded in the Veras (traditional rituals with songs and dances), they lost the wars and were subject to slavery, e.g. many were sent by the Todos as slaves to Bima. At that time, cheap labour was demanded by the Dutch on their plantation s in western Indonesia .This enslavement resulted in derogatory attitudes toward certain indigenous people of central-west Flores . |
Aims
The project aims to set up a comprehensive archive of the Rongga language and culture as a resource tool containing the core data and references on which further studies, analyses, and practical language-community programs may be based. Within the three-year project (2004-2006), a variety of data as part of the archive will be collected. It will include audio and visual recordings, (ethnographic) notes based on interviews and observations, as well as anthropological or linguistic descriptions. At the conclusion of the project, a grammar and a basic dictionary will be already completed.
The project also aims to help the local community and institutions to develop awareness and skills for language maintenance through training and active participation in the project. Teaching materials will be developed in the third year of the project as part the language maintenance program.
The Rongga Language
Rongga is spoken by around 4000 speakers, mainly in three villages (Tanarata, Bamo, and Watunggene) in the Flores island Indonesia . However, a small number of its speakers are also found in the neighbou ring village of Waelengga . These villages belong to the administration of Kota Komba sub-district, the regency of Manggarai. It is one of several small undocumented Austronesian languages clustered between Manggarai and Ngadha. Manggarai, the biggest language on the island, with more than half a million speakers dominates the western part of Flores , in West and (East) Manggarai regencies (7136,4 km2 ), almost one third of the island. Ngadha (also called Bajawa) with about 66,000 speakers is spoken in the regency of Ngada, east of Rongga. Other small languages to the north include Waerana, Kepo' and Manus.
