Functions and status of western loanwords in Indonesian

Abstract

In a radio interview some time ago I heard an Indonesian politician trying to use a western loanword, to comical effect. He wanted to say that certain laws were ‘retrospective’ in their scope (berlaku retrospektif). He got as far as “berlaku re-” and then stopped. He tried again, but wrongly said “retrospeks-” – perhaps confusing it with words like introspeksi”. He stopped again at that point, and said softly to himself in a puzzled tone Apa itu? ("What is it?"). Finally he gave up and simply used a common native word that means the same thing instead, namely surut.