Thomas Conners

The aim of the Indonesian Languages and Linguistics: State of the Field conference (InLaLi) is to bring together Indonesian and foreign scholars and researchers in anthropological linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and related fields, to collaboratively assess the current state of the rich and dynamic field of Indonesian languages and linguistics. It is timed so as to immediately follow the UN’s designated International Year of Indigenous Languages, as a major focus of scholarship is the endangerment of Indonesia’s 700 languages, many of which are still under-documented. There is a critical need for language documentation sensitive to competing forces of social change, and Indonesia is a center of such language documentation efforts. The instantiation and development of Standard Indonesian as a national language following independence from Dutch colonial rule stands as a model of successful language planning. Yet as an increasing number of Indonesians use Indonesian as a primary language, there is theoretical interest in the implications of shift toward Indonesian. This includes the linguistic and social aspects of language contact scenarios between Indonesian and hundreds of other languages of Indonesia (Austronesian, non-Austronesian and colonial), the potential obsolescence and endangerment of hundreds of languages in contact with Indonesian and each other, and a better understanding of the nature of modern multilingualism and language ideologies in Indonesia.