“SI BAK OR SI YUE ON PISANG?” EXAMINING ACEHNESE YOUTH’S KNOWLEDGE ON THE USE OF CORRECT CONTEXTUAL COUNTING SYSTEM IN ACEHNESE

Abstract

In the past few decades, more and more Acehnese youth prefer to use Indonesian language in daily communication than Acehnese language despite that both speaker and interlocutor know how to speak in Acehnese. This study intends to investigate how far the Acehnese youth still know how to speak in correct Acehnese language, especially in the use of contextual counting system, such as whether to use si bak or si yue when followed by on pisang. The data were collected by asking 100 respondents to translate ten sentences in Indonesian language, which include contextual counting, into Acehnese language. The result shows that most of the respondent found difficulty in putting the correct term to use in Acehnese when dealing with contextual counting. The finding of this study should give valuable information of the need to conserve the language from being loss as the motto said, “Language is the soul of a nation."

Keywords: Acehnese Language, Acehnese Youth, Contextual Counting System, Language Loss