Balinese Life
Balinese Language and Bali Arts Festival

Without being aware, a year has gone and June this year has already come. It means Bali will hold its annual arts extravaganza, the Bali Arts Festival. Hopefully this will always present something new besides the existing Balinese art creativity. Balinese artists have been waiting for this moment as a culmination of their creativity process. The rest of the community will take advantage for a moment of entertainment with family, while foreign travelers will explore Bali through the richness of its culture.

Various cultural attractions will be performed at this happening, ranging from the classic to modern dance, Balinese literary appreciation, handicraft, and art of cooking, traditional children games, painting exhibitions, souvenir-package design competition and so forth. So, by visiting the event Balinese spectators will get something like a ‘one-stop entertainment encounter’ while giving support and appreciation to the Balinese culture.
When we go further into all of the various forms of arts mentioned above we will arrive at a medium used to store and communicate the content of the arts, one of them is the Balinese language. In the midst of rapid growth of tourism in Bali, as a native speaker of Balinese, we certainly worry about the survival of the language. Just imagine that one day the Balinese language could just remain a legend if we do not embark on its preservation. Fortunately, the Bali Arts Festival has taken the initiave by holding many activities that highlight the competence of the language such as story telling, chanting Balinese hymns and so forth.
In running tourism, the use of English or other foreign languages is a must and unavoidable. However, at the same time, we should also give a space for Balinese language to grow and prevent it from extinction. Even though it has been taught at schools and given time on some local radio and television stations, the Balinese language actually still needs more ‘care’. Beside for short-term goals like educational aspect, learning Balinese should also give benefits to the language itself (preservation) and to its speakers.
Preserving the Balinese language must become the responsibility of all parties, the community and authority. In the future, it would be advisable if each regency and city throughout Bali has a Balinese language publication, either printed or online. The content may be not only be concerned with the Balinese culture, but also agribusiness, trade, community empowerment and so forth. Regencies certainly knows best its potential, problems and the like, so it’s the time for them to write. All customary villages or subak (irrigation cooperative) institutions may take this forum to share idea, experience and communicate their problems to the authority. While doing preservation of the language, the speakers may also take it advantage for business’s interest. Thus, the execution of Bali Arts Festival may become an arena of competition for this publication. The assessment of each publication will concurrently identify the actual problems, especially that of culture in the broader sense in the community as expressed by its members. By doing so, Balinese language as the host of this tourist destination still has ‘special habitat to grow’ in the media that is adjacent to that of Bahasa Indonesia and other publications of foreign languages.
As a favorite tourist destination, Bali has also attracted many foreign researchers since the colonial period. On carrying out research, they unquestionably interacted with the local people in learning more of the Balinese language. So, do not be surprised if one day finds foreign tourists speaking Balinese fluently. He may be a researcher or artist that has stayed in Bali for a long time. And this is a great appreciation to the native speaker (Balinese) indeed as he speaks the native language. (BTN/Punia)